


What It Do, Sooby Doo?

by TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Scooby Doo Fusion, Comedy, Fantasy, Hybrids, M/M, Mystery, gratuitous descriptions of fast food
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25363774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard/pseuds/TheSwingbyJeanHonoreFragonard
Summary: The war between hot dogs and cheeseburgers has always been brutal and full of cholesterol, but now it's getting downright SPOOKY and only the meddling kids of Mystery Inc. can get to the grease-stained bottom of it.Except... well... couldn't they finish their plate of chili cheese fries first? What a waste!
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Choi Yeonjun, Huening Kai/Kang Taehyun
Comments: 17
Kudos: 66
Collections: Director's Cut Fest





	What It Do, Sooby Doo?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Director's Cut Fest 2020 using Scooby Doo as the tv/film inspiration. Enjoy!

Hueningkai pulls his dad’s old van up to the curb outside of Beomgyu’s house at approximately 9:03 PM on a school night.

It’s a quiet, suburban area not too far from the highway or the factory and Kai hears the comforting  _ clackclack clackclack _ of a freight train rumbling past just a block or two down.

Beomgyu’s house is small but the garden outside is neatly arranged and the strawberries look ripe and ready to harvest.

But Kai isn’t here for strawberries. At least not tonight. 

After six short horn blasts and a looooong one that gets the neighborhood dogs barking, Beomgyu finally pulls the front door of his house open and walks to the end of his driveway. He wears an orange, wool turtleneck sweater that may be a bit warm for a June night like this and a pair of bright, clashing red shorts and orange knee-high socks like he’s thrown on whatever is cleanest rather than what’s cutest. 

On the other hand, Kai still wears the khakis and white and blue striped shirt that makes up the uniform of the bait and tackle shop where he works. He hasn’t long since clocked out for the evening.

Beomgyu props himself up on the van’s passenger-side door and rubs a hand over his freckled cheek and asks, “Don’t you know what time it is? I was getting ready for bed.”

Kai just smiles all wide and announces out the rolled down window that he’s “taking the gang out to Interstellar Hot Dog for a midnight snack. Just because.”

“It’s nowhere near midnight,” Beomgyu lets him know. 

“Time zones,” Kai shoots back. “It’s midnight somewhere.”

Large thick-rimmed glasses slide down Beomgyu’s thin nose as he struggles to swing open the tricky passenger door. You gotta get the angle right. Put the right amount of force on it. He never gets it on the first try but at least he gets it on the fourth. “Footlong hot dogs under a mountain of relish hardly equates to a  _ snack _ .” But he pulls himself up onto the passenger seat and buckles in anyway. 

Kai looks over at Beomgyu, an eyebrow raised and his grin a little snarky. “You’re the one thinking about ordering a footlong. I was just thinking of ice cream. The cinnamon bun flavor.”

And that’s a sound enough argument that Beomgyu shrugs and rolls with it. He kind of walked right into that one. “Well, concepts are largely dictated by the emotion and language we associate with them so if we’re going to call a number twelve combo with bacon chili cheese fries a snack instead of a meal…” He shrugs. He could be studying so he can get another three or four chapters ahead of the rest of his class or completing his personal research project on invasive species of flora or finishing up the last little bit of that academic essay he was in the middle of reading just for fun but he can’t really say no to Interstellar Hot Dog. They’ve got the best mustard in town. Even if it is 9:06 PM on a Wednesday with a pop quiz in the morning, he’ll set his brain exercises aside if it means hanging out with his friends. “...then we’ll call it a snack.”

“Now you understand,” Kai tells him. “It’s only a midnight snack if you _ believe _ it is.”

After a little bit more wrestling, Beomgyu shuts the door with one hand while he pulls his phone out of his pocket with the other. With an excited grin, he says, “I’ll call Taehyun and let him know we’re on the way.”

🌭

Taehyun lives in a gated community on the far southern edge of the city where it’s nothing but high cliffs and uninterrupted views of the ocean way down below. It’s 9:31 PM but the guard sees the horrendously painted orange and blue and green van coming around the corner blasting classic rock out the open windows and she lets the rumbling relic from the 70s through the gate without Kai even having to slow down. That’s how often the boys show up.

Still might be a fireable offense, though. Somewhere.

“So I’ve been working on a new invention,” says Kai. He turns the music down a little in an attempt to be courteous of the late-ish hour. Jimi Hendrix sings,  _ ‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky _ . “The pulleys were simple and the weight-based system works fine and I’ve optimized the speed at which the net fires but the motor is quick to overheat. Sometimes before I can even trigger the trap.” 

“You have to find a good way to cool it,” Beomgyu tells him. He sticks his hand out of the window and lets it catch the rough breeze coming in off the ocean. “If it has no external moving parts, you can surround it in cooling foam. Or the temperature displacing gel they use in high-end computer setups. I’m sure you can order some online. With a fair shipping price if you’re lucky. If push comes to shove, though, just get a big fan.”

“Big fan it is,” Kai says. “I think there’s one in the garage that I can fix up. I’ll have to figure out a way to attach it to the rest of the machine.”

Beomgyu shrugs. “Duct tape?”

And it’s a good idea. Kai says, “If you can’t duct it, fuc-- Oh!” In his distraction, he forgets all about that sneaky speed bump and the van rattles like it is about to fall apart as the back wheels leave the ground for a precarious second.

Kai and Beomgyu stare at each other in wide-eyed horror for a few seconds and then burst into simultaneous laughter.

“You said you wouldn’t forget it again,” Beomgyu squeals.

“That was because I thought I’d have the obstacle detecting system installed by now!”

“Or you could always _ slow down _ !”

And they giggle again because Kai usually does keep a heavy foot on the accelerator but if you tell him that, he just blames it on the fact that he’s not even had his license for a year yet.

He does ease off the gas as he drives around the curving road to the rear of the neighborhood.

Taehyun’s family lives in a big, brick mansion with a pool that sits at the end of a road lined with other big brick mansions with pools. Except, well, the Kangs live in the biggest house with the largest pool on top of the highest cliff so it stands out from the others.

Kai sighs in defeat because he can’t do any horn honking since Taehyun is already waiting for them at the curb, one of his black-clad butlers at his side.

As Kai puts the van in neutral, Taehyun waves up at the windshield at them and the other boys wave back. 

Beomgyu unbuckles his seatbelt and shoulders the door open before he hops down to the curb. “Alright, Tae. Get in.” He likes to let Taehyun sit in the middle of the bench seat, closest to Kai, because he is a genius and knows what the little smiles Kai gives Taehyun mean and he knows what the sidelong glances Taehyun gives Kai mean. If only either of them paid slightly more attention, then perhaps they would also know what such things mean.

But not everyone can be a genius.

Beomgyu sighs as the weight of the world settles on his shoulders.

He has to carry this burden by himself.

The butler steps up to the van and holds out a white-gloved hand which Taehyun uses as a handhold to climb into the vehicle. Beomgyu is pretty sure he knows most of the Kang family’s waitstaff and he would like to think this tired man is named Yoongi.

“And what time shall we expect you back, sir,” asks the butler. His back is straight. His hair is coiffed. His smile is stiff. Beomgyu smells the starch on the guy’s shirt from where he stands.

Taehyun settles into the middle seat and buckles himself in. He glances at Kai. “Uhh…”

Kai leans around him to say, “I’ll try to have him back by midnight.” Then he reconsiders. “1 AM.”

“Noted,” Yoongi says. “I will inform the family.” And then he steps away from the vehicle, leaving Beomgyu to clamber back up into the van without any help.

Taehyun swings the rearview mirror towards himself to admire his own reflection. He turns his head left and then right and then runs his pinky finger beneath his bottom lip to fix a barely noticeable lip balm smudge. He looks good tonight. Like he was already prepared to go out before Beomgyu called him. Or, more accurately, like he has a team of stylists at his beck and call to get him photo shoot ready in less than twenty minutes. His bright orange hair is curled at the ends, his eyeliner is winged to the gods and his silky purple shirt and snug white pants are clearly designer. His luxury and cleanliness stands out like a sore thumb inside Kai’s old, worn out van that always smells faintly of fish. But the difference doesn’t matter much to Taehyun. “Wow, Kai, did you fix the radio? Sounds good.”

“You only just now noticed,” Kai asks. “I’ve been playing music since I pulled up.”

“When are you going to hook it up with Bluetooth,” Taehyun questions. “I have a playlist made for nights like these.”

“One generation of upgrades at a time,” Kai says. It’s a made up rule of his, though. He swings the rearview mirror back his way so that he can lean up in his seat and lick a stray sliver of potato chip from beneath his braces. “I have to McGuyver a CD player for it first.”

“But, before that, he’s got the obstacle detection system to implement,” Beomgyu provides. “And are we still rigging up the old satellite dish to intercept police radio calls?”

Kai nods. “Yes. But I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the most efficient way to attach it to the roof.”

Taehyun just nods. This is the boring stuff for him. He’s not here for Kai’s engineering genius or Beomgyu’s academic know-how. He’s here to look good. “I see,” he says. “I love how much fun you guys have.” He pulls his phone out of his pocket so he can open the front camera and continue his primping. It’s tough to do in the minimal lighting but he manages like he’s a pro.

“And I like how nice you look,” says Kai, which may be the closest to a confession he will come tonight.

“Thanks. It’s Valentino,” says Taehyun, missing the point. As usual.

Kai sighs almost with relief.

Beomgyu sighs with frustration. He loves his friends but  _ come on _ . This makes the millionth time.

They pull away from the curb. Kai turns the music back up and remembers to slow down before they go crashing over that pesky speed bump again. The van comes around a curb, the trees part, and then the full moon glows through the front windshield, round and silver and bright. The light reflects off the surface of the black, rippling ocean and it all looks quite lovely.

Life is good.

Kai drives out the community gates, waves to the guard and wheels the van back towards downtown. They have one more important stop to make before they can even  _ pretend _ to go to Interstellar Hot Dog.

Beomgyu slides his glasses up his nose. “I’m pretty sure Yeonjun’s still up. I’ll call him.”

🌭

The gang must drive down from the cliffs, through the fish market, circle past Kai’s house and drive alongside the dark, still harbor to get all the way to the neighborhoods and palm trees by sea level. And, after discussing the merits of the hot dog stand’s menu in great detail, the guys are truly, properly hungry now and not even some eldritch creature summoned from a Louisiana bayou will keep them away from their food.

At 9:46 PM, Kai pulls the van up to the small, key lime green, beachside bungalow on stilts where Yeonjun and his father live and Kai is super happy about it because he gets to lean his elbow on the horn for several seconds until Yeonjun comes out the back door and hop-skips down the porch stairs, his dog hybrid Sooby Doo right at his heels.

“Guys, guys,” Yeonjun calls out. “Talk about timing. I just made brownies!” He holds up a zip-lock bag full of them and passes them through the driver’s window to Kai.

Kai looks at them in the glow from Yeonjun’s porch light. “They still feel warm from the oven.” He feels his stomach growl.

Beomgyu leans towards the window. “We aren’t eating  _ your _ brownies again.”

“Not with school in the morning,” says Taehyun quickly. And just to make sure everyone knows he’s down, he quietly adds, “Maybe on the weekend. Yeah. Yeah.”

“Come on!” Yeonjun frowns. “There’s nothing but good ole chocolate fudge in there.” He meets Kai’s disbelieving eyebrow raise with a smile. “This time! I swear.”

“I kept an eye on him,” says Sooby Doo confidently. He’s a big guy, a big dog, but still thinks he’s a little puppy with how excitedly he drapes himself over Yeonjun’s shoulders. “And I definitely made sure he didn’t get into his dad’s stash. I promise he won’t be terrified of tiki masks this time.”

“Look, those things  _ were _ scary,” says Beomgyu a little defensively. “With the bottomless eyes and the teeth.” And there had been like twenty of the things.

Yeonjun frees himself from beneath Sooby Doo’s weight and runs a hand through the hybrid’s dark brown hair. Yeonjun’s had Sooby since he was a kid and knows exactly how to keep the hybrid in line. “Look, Soob, you can’t, like, keep bringing up all of my embarrassing experiences.” Sooby’s big ears flop back and forth beneath Yeonjun’s hand and Sooby smiles wide from the attention. “Unless you want me to bring up that one time with the poodle.”

Sooby’s face changes instantly. He backs away from Yeonjun, eyes wide and mouth agape. “You wouldn’t dare!”

Yeonjun just smirks before he turns back to the van and his watching, waiting friends. “I swear you can, like, eat more than one brownie, dude. It’ll be fine.” Yeonjun’s hair is past shoulder-length now. Long and shaggy and tangled. He’s been growing it out since the winter. Yeonjun wears a tie dye shirt and khaki cargo shorts, both of them a size or two too large and long on him. Yeonjun says, “Unlock the door already.”

Kai hands the bag of brownies to Taehyun and then twists around in his seat to manually undo the latch on the side door.

Yeonjun slides the door back and it angrily squeals at him before it screeches to a halt halfway down the track but it wouldn’t be  _ their _ van if everything worked exactly like it should on the first try. Besides, it’s enough space for him and Sooby to squeeze through so the two of them climb in. 

Sooby’s blue and yellow collar jangles as he makes himself comfy in the back seat. His dark brown shirt rides up on him a little and shows off just a sliver of tummy above his jeans.

“We better hurry,” Yeonjun says as he slams the door shut and helps Sooby buckle up. “We have, like, ten minutes.”

It should be against the law to ask Kai to  _ hurry _ when he’s behind the wheel. “Don’t worry, gang. I’ll get us there in time.” He floors it and the old van lurches forward on squealing tires and creaky axles, belching black smoke into the air all of the way to the end of the boardwalk.

🌭

Jungkook is less than thrilled to see the van rumble to a halt in Interstellar Hot Dog’s otherwise empty parking lot.

He’s even less thrilled to watch the four boys and their dog clamber out of the vehicle and wander up to the hot dog stand, full of chatter and laughter and slow, relaxed movements like it’s not 9:57 PM or something.

Instead of reciting the job-mandated script of ‘Welcome to Interstellar Hot Dog where our hot dogs are out of this world. What piece of the galaxy can I put on a bun for you today?’ Jungkook groans and condenses all of that down to: “We close in three minutes.” Then he glances at the timestamp on the register and amends. “We close in two minutes.” He doesn’t even attempt a Customer Service Smile.

“Oh, that’s more than enough time,” says Kai.

“I mean, technically, it’s not 10 yet,” Yeonjun points out. 

Jungkook is unconvinced. He stares. His long, black hair is snatched behind his head in a ponytail and even though his boss tells him to cover his tattoos, Jungkook has his shirt sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, revealing the detailed ink up and down both arms.

It’s not like his boss can condemn what he isn't here to see.

“We’ll put in our orders real quick,” Beomgyu adds.

“And you can have one of these.” Taehyun hands Jungkook a brownie.

Jungkook holds it in his hand. He clearly hesitates, staring at it like it may bite him. He clearly remembers what happened last week.

“It’s just chocolate fudge,” Yeonjun whines. “Gosh!”

And that’s good enough for Jungkook. He crams it into his mouth, crumbs flying, chocolate staining his lips.

“We know we’re swinging by pretty late,” Kai attempts.

“At least you’re self-aware,” Jungkook tells him with a mouthful of brownie. 

“We’re sorry,” Kai keeps going.

“If you really were, would you be here now?”

Kai exhales out of his nose. “Yeah, actually.”

Jungkook looks like he’s ready to wave them away and close up shop, but it’s been years and he still can’t resist these guys. “And if you sit in the parking lot after we close, that’s loitering.” Maybe. Possibly. 

Yeonjun says, “Oh, we’ll park on the far end, then.” As if that alleviates their problems.

Jungkook stares at the boys in turn. “If you guys wanted food, couldn’t you have planned things out so that you aren’t rolling up to the window mere seconds before we close?”

“We’ve been on the way here for the past hour,” explains Kai.

Beomgyu says, “Tell Jimin to fire up the grill again.”

“I never shut it off!” Jimin steps forward out of a cloud of woodsy smoke to stand next to Jungkook and holds up a pair of tongs like they’re a weapon. “Something told me you kids would bug the snot out of me tonight. Of course I can’t go home on time. Of course!”

“We have other plans, you know,” Jungkook tells the boys. “We have lives.”

Jimin barely manages to hold back his anger. He snaps, “Let’s just close up and go home. The kids can go somewhere else! Isn’t that new burger joint open until midnight?”

But Jungkook, ever the softie, says, “Just one more order, Jimin. Five more minutes.”

“Five minutes? Five minutes!? It’s gonna take longer than five minutes. You’re not the one who has to stand over the grill.” 

“Please,” Sooby begs. He claps his hands together, pokes out his bottom lip and hits Jimin with his best puppy dog eyes.

It works. Jimin elbows Jungkook hard in the side. “Makes you hate working here even more, doesn’t it?” But he turns around and heads to the grill regardless.

“Anyways,” Taehyun says, not the least bit concerned about who needs to bend over backwards to do what so long as he gets what he wants, “I’d like a number three combo with onion rings and a cookie dough milkshake.” Kai has to grab Taehyun’s wrist to keep him from handing over an entire stack of 50,000 won bills.

“I’ll have a number twelve with extra mustard and bacon chili cheese fries,” says Beomgyu, “with a diet Dr. Pepper.” Since he’s watching his calorie intake.

“Just cinnamon bun ice cream for me, please,” Kai says.

“What do you want, Soob?” Yeonjun turns to Sooby.

Sooby’s eyes light up. He’s been making a list!

Jungkook sighs, rolls his eyes and starts tapping their orders into the register.

🌭

The five of them have their own way of doing things when they go out to eat. It’s different at every restaurant and fast food place in town but at Interstellar Hot Dog, it goes like this: hot dogs are claimed territory but side dishes and condiments are fair game. In fact, it’s a bit communal, with onion rings and French fries and crispy tater tots and tortilla chips all sitting in a soggy, chili-covered, ketchup-topped, cheesy heap on top of all of their napkins in the center of the picnic table. A heap which quickly diminishes over the minutes as Yeonjun and Sooby feast on the heart-stopping tower of carbs.

Beomgyu watches Jimin and Jungkook close up shop. It’s almost like a ritual of theirs, how they mop and scrub and clean, silently divvying up the work between them because they’ve done this together a hundred times before. It takes them fifteen minutes exactly before they shutter up all the windows, lock the door and walk across the parking lot with slumped shoulders and tired sighs. Even if you only knew them for a moment, you could recognize Jungkook because of his long hair. You could also recognize Jimin by his hair. If only because he’s dyed it pastel pink.

“Maybe we should have just ordered delivery,” Beomgyu says, feeling guilty as he watches the two employees shuffle and sigh. “We could have gone for tacos. Yeah. Tacos.”

“Bit too late for that, don’t you think,” Kai wonders. He licks his ice cream. “We’re already eating.”

Sooby eagerly watches Jungkook and Jimin cross the parking lot to their car just in case they throw him the fry bits. They’re the best part! Yet Jungkook and Jimin don’t even look in Sooby’s direction. It seems like he won’t get  _ anything _ this time and his ears droop and his tail sags. But then Jungkook crosses towards the picnic table where they sit and pulls a greasy bag of cold, salty, slightly charred French fry crumbs from beneath his shirt where he was hiding it and tosses it to Sooby.

“Good boy,” he says when the dog hybrid catches it.

“I’d do anything for fry bits,” Sooby says, tail wagging. He peels open the bag, inhales the scent deeply, and then shoves his hand inside.

“Hey, man, save some fry bits for me,” Yeonjun insists. He leans over Beomgyu’s lap to get his hand in the bag before Sooby scores another handful.

“You guys shouldn’t stay long,” Jimin says, keeping a bit of a distance from the boys. It’s nighttime but he slides a pair of dark shades up his nose. He looks more like a movie star than a fast food employee. “There’s rumors of weird things happening around here at night. We--”

Jungkook hits him in the chest hard enough to make Jimin choke on air.

“What,” Jimin gasps. He rubs his body where Jungkook struck him.

“Don’t go spreading rumors,” Jungkook admonishes.

“ _ Rumors _ ? This weird stuff really happens!”

Yeonjun wipes relish off of his mouth. “What weird stuff? Weird good or weird bad?”

“Weird bad,” Jungkook provides. “Disruptive, even.”

Beomgyu leans forward on his elbows and asks, “Got a better description than that?”

“Flashing lights,” says Jimin with a dramatic wave of his hand. “Freaky noises. Clouds of smoke. People have even seen some kind of slime monster lurking around the--.”

Jungkook hits him again. Harder.

“What,” Jimin repeats, angrier and louder. “Why can’t we tell them? We’ve already lost enough late-night customers because of this mess. It’s been going on like this since last month.”

“You’ll never lose us,” says Yeonjun. “We’ll always be here to stuff our faces so long as you guys don’t change the chili recipe.”

“Yeah,” Sooby agrees. “We’ll swim to the bottom of the ocean if you guys open up another location down there.”

Jimin’s expression is already tough to gauge with the shades covering half of his face but he somehow manages to look even more unreadable. It’s in the clench of the jaw. “We appreciate you being regulars but this is a  _ business _ and it’s going to take more than some high school kids and their dog’s once-a-week binges to keep us out of the red.”

“Oh. If it’s money that you need, just take some of mine.” Taehyun goes for his pockets. “I’ve got like… a million of these things. I don’t need them all.”

Kai grabs his wrist to keep Taehyun from handing over his wad of won. Again. Like it really means that little to him. Like he truly doesn’t understand the meaning of cash. 

Jungkook almost looks pissed that he can’t snatch the cash and glares at Kai like he wants to start a fight.

Jimin grabs Jungkook by the sleeve and pulls him away. “Let’s just go, man. We still have that other thing to do tonight. Remember? The thing?”

“Right,” Jungkook exhales, as if he forgot.

The boys watch as Jimin and Jungkook walk off to the last row of the lot, climb into their car, crank up and drive away.

For a moment, there’s peace and quiet. There’s just the noise of the boys chowing down on their food or slurping down their sodas. The breeze is damp and cool and the moon makes the ocean and the palm trees look all pretty and silver. It should only take a few more days, then the beaches will fill with tourists and the nights will never be quiet. There will always be fireworks and bonfires and music and partying. Downtime like this should be savored.

But… 

“I get the feeling,” says Beomgyu, looking at Kai over the top of his thick-rimmed glasses, “that you didn’t bring us out here just for a midnight snack that’s not really a snack at definitely-not midnight.”

Kai innocently licks up more of his ice cream and really hopes his genius friend doesn’t connect the dots.

“A midnight snack,” Taehyun asks. “That’s what this is supposed to be? It’s not even 10:30.”

“It’s midnight somewhere,” Yeonjun says. “Time zones.”

“That’s what I said,” Kai exclaims, his face lighting up.

“Don’t change the subject!” Beomgyu points a soggy fry up at Kai. “You knew about this monster thing. And you brought us all here because you want us to look into it.”

Caught, Kai shrugs both of his shoulders up to his ears like  _ mayyyyybe _ .

“Look into it? I don’t know, man,” Yeonjun pipes up. “Spooky lights. Freaky monster sightings. Like, that totally sounds like something we shouldn’t get involved with.”

“Yeah,” Sooby immediately agrees. He crosses his arms over his chest. “We shouldn’t get involved. You guys have school in the morning. And we haven’t finished our food.”

Taehyun wipes his mouth with a napkin. “You’re saying that like this is the first time we’ve meddled in some weird stuff around this freakshow town.”

“We do this all of the time,” says Beomgyu. “We  _ specialize _ in these things.” 

“That’s the whole reason we’re together,” Kai reminds them. “To sniff out freaky stories like this and figure out the truth!”

“Yeah, but we’ve never driven right up to it,” Yeonjun clarifies. “We’ve never been, like, _ oh hey look, there’s something suspicious, let’s just plan a trip _ ! Trouble usually crashes on our heads while we’re doing something else!”

“Yeah,” Sooby Doo echoes. “Like trying to eat. Or sleep. Or eat while sleeping!”

“Like the army of skeletons on the pirate ship ride in the amusement park,” Yeonjun recalls. He snaps his fingers rapidly as their last few mysteries pop up in his head. “Or the creepy lady’s ghost in the bus station. Or the haunted puppets at the children’s museum. We didn’t know those places were wacky when we went! We were, like, just minding our own business when we got involved, man.” He pulls on his hair in a show of exasperation.

“Well, if you wanted to wait until trouble found us, you’re in luck,” says Taehyun. He seems awfully happy about this. “Look!”

Four heads turn in the direction he’s pointing, back towards the shuttered-up hot dog stand with the weird sparkly Saturn-sculpture-on-a-bun thing on the roof.

It’s dark in the parking lot without the lights of the restaurant to beat back the shadows, so the radioactive green glow coming from behind the building is unmistakable. It’s frightening, a little, how it seeps into the air. How the glow comes from between the shutters across the windows and from beneath the door like something living. The light brightens and dims rapidly, pulsing into the night sky and touching the bottom of the clouds like a beacon trying to send some coded signal to aliens.

“Flashing lights,” Beomgyu mumbles. “Check.”

It starts low and soft. A hum. Then it increases in volume until the air vibrates with it. Until the ground shakes. The soda in their cups sloshes around and the styrofoam things nearly fall over because of the trembling. It’s a grating noise. Rumbles and beeps and clicks like something huge and inhuman trying to speak or scream. The whine swings high and loud until it almost  _ hurts _ and Sooby slaps his hands down over his dog ears and whimpers in pain.

Yeonjun hops off of the picnic table bench, more than ready to run. “Zoinks! Freaky noises,” he practically cries.

“Check,” Sooby adds.

The noise stays aggressive and loud but now there’s a weird mist swirling into the air.

No, it doesn’t just come from behind the restaurant. It drifts up from all around the parking lot. From beneath the bushes. From the boughs of the nearby trees. From around the one flickering street lamp. It only takes seconds to thicken up in the air and obscure their vision and the weird light seems to reach and stretch through the fog, surrounding the boys in sickly green.

“Clouds of smoke. Check,” Taehyun adds to the tally. He was excited before but now he is clearly spooked.

Whatever they found themselves in the middle of is about to get really wild.

Even Beomgyu, ever the cynic, reaches out blindly until he manages to grab hold of Sooby’s hand on top of the picnic table. “Guys,” he half-screams.

The smoke gets so thick that they can’t see much. Can hardly see each other. Even the hot dog stand becomes some blurry, smeared shadow overlaid in green light.

Kai looks at his chunky, waterproof wristwatch and frowns. “Hmm. That slime monster must have missed his cue.”

“Don’t jinx it,” Sooby wails.

No sooner have the words left his mouth than the clouds seem to draw backwards. It’s like being waist-deep in the ocean and feeling the tide fall back. The mist swirls and swirls and, like theater curtains being pulled aside, the dissipating smoke reveals the monster.

“Oh dear,” Taehyun exclaims.

It’s large. Much bigger than they expected. Well, none of them really knew  _ what _ they were expecting but it definitely wasn’t this. This tall brute of a thing. And wide too. Broad and… bulky? Misshapen, almost. It’s so difficult to get a clear read on what it is through the disorienting smoke and flickering lights. All the boys really need to be aware of are the two glowing, angry eyes leering at them from the other end of the parking lot.

“What  _ is _ that, man,” Yeonjun asks. He rubs at his eyes and looks up again. “I could have sworn there’s only chocolate fudge in those brownies.”

“We see it too,” Taehyun tells him. Then he pinches his nose. “Ugh. What’s that smell?”

It hits them like a wave. Beomgyu gets nauseous.

Sooby sniffs the air. His eyes go comically wide as he wags his tail. “Beef?”

But the gang don’t have any time at all to question what on earth he means by that when the hulking monster starts hobbling towards them, arms outstretched, some strange goop dripping from its arms and trailing across the pavement. The monster opens what appears to be its big, toothy mouth and that loud, low, rumbling noise they’ve been hearing for a while now is amplified horrifically. 

Taehyun flinches and covers his ears. By the time he gets his eyes open again, the monster has covered a quarter of the parking lot. It moves faster than something that size should frankly be capable.

“Gang,” Kai says. A warning. He grabs the keys to his van off the picnic table.

That’s a good enough sign for everyone.

“This is what we get for loitering,” says Beomgyu.

Taehyun swings one leg over the picnic bench and then the other. “If it touches me and messes up my clothes…”

“Let’s get outta here,” says Sooby. He leaps to his feet and practically drags Beomgyu with him.

Beomgyu, not even half as athletic, winds up being flipped onto his back on the pavement because of Sooby’s eagerness.

“Sorry, sorry,” Sooby cries out. He’s already running.

Yeonjun steps forward and lifts Beomgyu to his feet in an almost uncharacteristic display of chivalry. They stand chest to chest and stare at each other for a moment too long considering the danger before Kai barrels into them and knocks them apart.

“We have to go,” Kai states. “We don’t know what that is or what it wants!”

“But our  _ food _ ,” Sooby yells, pointing.

“Leave it,” yells Kai. He makes a run for it. The others follow.

There’s no time to think about what remains of their unfinished meal. The monster has crossed over half of the parking lot now and it will only be seconds before it’s close enough to reach them.

Kai unlocks the van. The old girl practically has arthritis, though, so getting all her doors open eats up precious seconds. The gang dives inside and locks themselves in. The monster comes close to the van doors and Beomgyu jumps backwards away from the window as it closes in on them. 

Kai cranks up the van, throws it in gear and gets the tires spinning as he peels out of the parking lot.

🌭

Interstellar Hot Dog is far behind them now. The green glow has left the sky, at least. 

They’re so far inland that they can’t even see the beach. Even the moon has dipped behind some clouds like she needs a break.

“Whoa, whoa, jeez Kai. You’re, like, going 60 in a 35, man.” Yeonjun reaches up from the backseat to squeeze Kai’s shoulder. “Can this old thing even  _ go _ that fast without falling apart?”

It definitely sounds like it can’t.

“Oh man,” Kai chokes out. It’s like he’s waking up from a dream. He blinks and visibly relaxes into his seat. “Oh dear.” He slows the van down and parallel parks at the side of the road, palm trees and Mediterranean style homes on either side of them. He kills the engine and the five of them sit in silence. Only the ticking and popping and whining of the cooling engine offers a break from the quiet.

Well, that and Sooby popping open a tube of pizza flavored Pringles.

Yeonjun clears his throat and goes, “We’re all friends, right? We, like, love and support each other through thick and thin. Right?”

You would have thought it was a trick question how long it takes Beomgyu to go, “Yeah. We are.”

“Of course,” says Taehyun.

“Duh,” agrees Kai.

“Good. That means no one will judge me for this.” Yeonjun shifts onto his side, lifts his leg and farts. It’s one of those loud, high-pitched ones that kind of sounds like a squeaky chair or something.

Sooby laughs at the noise. He raises a leg and lets out a fart of his own. Low and choppy-sounding like someone struggling to start a lawnmower.

Taehyun turns around and looks at them both with wide-eyed, slack-jawed horror.

Beomgyu rolls his eyes because he should have expected this from those two.

Kai just rolls down the window and tries not to inhale too deeply.

Yeonjun fans his own face. “Been holding that in since the monster showed up. Really thought it was gonna be something else at the time. Luckily it’s just gas.”

Against his better judgment, Beomgyu laughs. He can’t help but be charmed.

The tension breaks. The others snicker. For a moment, they can forget about the danger.

The five of them sit like that for several seconds. Several minutes.

They are too far from the beach to hear the crashing waves or smell the salt in the air, but the breeze is comfortably cool and the night air is full of quiet noise. Bugs sing, frogs croak and the palm trees rustle in the wind. Someone must be having a party a block or two over because, faintly, Kai hears bass-heavy music.

Taehyun lets out an exhausted sigh and probably doesn’t even realize what he’s doing when he slumps against Kai and rests his head on the younger boy’s shoulder.

Kai is so out of it that he doesn’t even seem to notice. Doesn’t even freak out in dramatic teenage excitement like he would at any other brief physical contact with his long-time crush.

“I’m going to be the first to say it,” says Beomgyu, a bit breathless. “That thing back there…” He points out the open window in the direction they came from like any of them need a reminder about what he’s talking about. “That was a hamburger monster.” He had gotten a good look at the beast before they escaped. It was so large and bulky because it was a tall, thick double cheeseburger topped with bacon and lettuce and tomato and red onions, dripping with some kind of smoky barbecue sauce and squeezed between two sesame seed buns. “It’s not a slime monster. It’s a  _ grease _ monster. It literally drips with fat.”

Yeonjun falls back against his seat. “That explains why Soob smelled beef.”

“It was definitely premium cut meat,” Sooby lets everyone know, mouth full of Pringles. “100% Angus or my name is Courage The Cowardly Dog. And it’s not.”

“So… Does anyone want to explain why there’s a hamburger monster at the hot dog stand?” Taehyun wipes his bangs out of his face with a hand. They fall right back across his forehead. “Interstellar Hot Dog doesn’t even  _ sell _ burgers.”

And it’s then that Kai realizes that Taehyun is leaning against him. He reaches up and pushes that pesky lock of hair away from Taehyun’s eyes. It’s a cute moment. But then Kai loses his nerve and sits up so quickly that he dislodges Taehyun’s head from his shoulder.

Oh well. Maybe next time.

It’s Beomgyu that goes, “So, what are we gonna do?”

“ _ We _ ,” says Yeonjun loudly, pointing to himself and Sooby, “aren’t going to do anything. Like, I’d love it if you took us home, man. We gotta have dinner all over again because of this.”

“It  _ is _ a school night,” Kai remembers. And it’s after 11 PM already. He promised to get Taehyun home by one in the morning so they really only have an hour or so to keep hanging out before he has to start taking everyone home.

They don’t really have time for mystery solving tonight.

Ugh. What a shame. This was shaping up to be a good one!

A pair of headlights comes up the road from the opposite direction. The small, old car that’s about as beat-up as the van slows down and pulls up alongside them. The driver rolls their window down. “Kai?”

Kai turns around to look out the window. There’s just enough orange light from the street lamp behind them for him to get a look at the driver’s face. Recognition hits. “Oh. Mr. Kim! Hey.” He waves, pleasantly surprised.

Namjoon waves back. He looks just as shocked to see them as they are to see him. He’s the owner of Interstellar Hot Dog but, in spite of that, the boys rarely interact with him. He usually oversees the place in the mornings and early afternoons while the boys are in class. With Namjoon’s rather ridiculous height and muscular build, he’d be quite the intimidating man if it weren’t for the size of his smile and the depths of his dimples and the absolute brightness of his tacky shirt. “What are you guys doing out here at this hour,” Namjoon asks. “You boys don’t live out here.”

“We’re just going for a drive,” says Beomgyu quickly, leaning around Taehyun to get closer to the window. “Just hanging out.”

They were not _ just going for a drive _ but maybe that sounds better than ‘we were escaping a hamburger monster screaming at us and chasing us down in the parking lot of your place of business’ which is probably why no one else in the van corrects him.

Namjoon nods slowly with vague understanding.

“Well, what are  _ you _ doing out here,” asks Kai when the silence gets a tad awkward. “You don’t live out this way either.”

And it’s probably a risky question to aim at someone so much older than them but Namjoon laughs it off. “Something tripped the alarm at the hot dog stand. The cops called me. I’m going to keep an eye on everything.” He gives them another cordial wave and brilliant smile before he drives away.

The gang sits in silence until Namjoon’s car goes around the bend and disappears from view.

Beomgyu clears his throat and wonders, “Shall we go investigate?”

Kai cranks up the van and starts a three-point turn. “I thought you would never ask.”

🌭

It is entirely impossible to be stealthy in a van as clunky and noisy and horrendously painted as theirs so Kai doesn’t attempt to be sneaky as he follows Namjoon from residential block to residential block, back down to the brightly-painted buildings that line the boardwalk. The way is familiar--their town is relatively small--but Namjoon still manages to get a bit ahead when Kai catches a red light (that Yeonjun nearly convinces him to roll through.) 

Minutes later, Kai pulls the van into the parking lot of Interstellar Hot Dog and parks directly behind Namjoon’s hooptie.

“Well, the cop just left,” Yeonjun announces, pointing to the car as it drives past them to the main road. “Must not have been too serious.”

“Thankfully,” Sooby breathes. “I don’t want anyone getting hurt.”

Kai cuts off the van and they sit in stillness for a few seconds. No one wants to admit it but they are all a little afraid that the monster hasn’t left yet.

“Who’s car is that,” Beomgyu wonders.

Next to the shuttered-up hot dog stand is a fancy looking, candy apple red, old-timey Cadillac with the top down. One of those classic numbers you see in old greaser movies or at car shows.

Sooby whistles, completely impressed. “Ooooh. Sparkly.”

Yeonjun huffs and goes, “I’ve never seen that around here. Trust me. As much as the peeps in this town like to show off their rides, this has never been parked by  _ my _ beach.”

“Hmm. Is it particularly nice?” Taehyun leans towards the front windshield to get a better look. “My dad’s got around thirty really similar cars sitting in the underground parking deck at home. Maybe more.”

Right. There’s that.

“It  _ is _ a little suspicious that they’re out here when the place is closed, though,” says Kai.

“No. I think Namjoon knows them.” Beomgyu points out the front windshield. “Look.”

Namjoon and a bleached blonde stranger are in the hot dog stand’s shadow, talking animatedly. For the first few seconds, considering how close the men stand to each other, it seems like they are having fun or maybe engaging in some secret affair that the boys shouldn’t be watching, but then the moon comes out from behind the clouds and the brighter light reveals Namjoon’s distressed expression. Now it looks more like an argument. Namjoon is taller than the man he speaks to but he still seems to shrink in size and curl in on himself as he swiftly loses whatever verbal battle the two of them are in.

Whatever it is, it can’t be healthy.

And maybe it’s got something to do with the hamburger monster.

Kai opens his door and hops out. “Alright, gang. Let’s split up and search for clues.”

With a bit more hesitation from the others, they open their own doors and climb out. 

Kai beams. Looks like they’re going mystery solving after all! He wonders if he can get everyone home by curfew. Probably not. But it’ll be okay. Kai jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “I’m going to see what those two are talking about. Maybe we can figure out what’s going on here.”

“I’ll come with you,” Taehyun volunteers, a little overeager. He fusses with his hair and clothes as if he doesn’t already look very cute. They walk left towards the corner of the building and Kai visibly restrains himself from reaching out for Taehyun’s hand as they go.

“I want a closer look at that car,” says Yeonjun. “Come on, Soob.”

Sooby nods. “Yeah. Let’s take photos in front of it!”

Beomgyu almost follows after the two of them but he is a genius and all geniuses know that the best way to start an investigation is to go to the source of the mystery. He pushes his glasses up his nose and decides to go to the place where the lights and weird noises originated from. 

He decides to go behind the restaurant.

🌭

Oddly, Namjoon and his bleached blonde friend don’t immediately notice Kai and Taehyun walking up on them. That’s how engaged in their heated conversation that they are.

The well-dressed stranger pokes Namjoon in the chest. “This is getting old, Namjoon. We’re going on month three, here. I only have so much grace to spare.”

“Please,” begs Namjoon. “It’s been tough lately. I haven’t been able to earn much profit with all this weird stuff… With all these _ difficulties _ happening on the property. But the tourist season will be in full swing any week now. I’ll definitely be able to have it for you then.”

“You’ve been saying the same thing over and over since April and, frankly, I’m getting sick of hearing it.”

“It’s not even the end of the month, Seokjin,” Namjoon complains. He sounds like he’s at wit’s end and rakes his hand through his hair. “Why come all the way here now?”

“Because it’s  _ my _ money and you’re past due. You started falling behind on rent back in March!”

Namjoon groans loudly but it is out of total defeat.

The man seemingly named Seokjin crosses his arms in front of his chest. He’s a good-looking guy, stylish and composed, but he would be so much more handsome if his face wasn’t screwed up in such an ugly scowl. “I’m running a business here. I need a hard and fast calendar date.” If Namjoon is imposing because of his height and musculature, then Seokjin is imposing because of the way he carries himself. Back straight, chest puffed out, head held high. He even makes giant Kai feel tiny and Seokjin’s not even looking at him.

“Fine,” Namjoon sighs. “I’ll dip into my own personal finances and catch up on all of the missed rent and utilities by… By next week. Next Friday.”

“With interest,” Seokjin makes sure he knows.

“With interest,” Namjoon agrees.

Seokjin runs a hand down the front of his shirt as if to wipe away invisible specks of dust.

Kai has been friends with Taehyun long enough to recognize expensive clothes when he sees them. There’s just something about the sheen of the fabric. Something about the tailor-fit that has the patterned shirt clinging to Seokjin’s torso. Combined with the man’s posture, Kai gets the impression that Seokjin is important somehow. Or maybe just rich.

Seokjin becomes aware of the boys’ presence because he turns his head in their direction. He doesn’t even look all that surprised by them staring up at him. In fact, he seems pleased to have witnesses.

Namjoon follows his gaze but looks decidedly more embarrassed by Kai and Taehyun seeing him stressing out like this. “Boys, what are you doing here?”

“Making sure you’re alright,” says Kai. 

That’s as good a time as any for Seokjin to make his exit. He starts to walk away but spares Namjoon one more glance over his shoulder. “We’ll be in touch.” Then, shockingly, he grins and goes, “See you later, Kang Taehyun.”

The three of them watch him walk away.

Then it hits Kai over the head. “What! You  _ know _ him?”

“I… I don’t think so,” Taehyun mumbles. “He doesn’t look familiar to me. Maybe he knows my parents? I’ll--” He pulls his phone out of his pocket. “I’ll ask Yoongi.”

Kai looks back up to watch Seokjin strut away. He takes his time. Like going around and pressuring small business owners late at night is just some casual thing he does often.

When the man is around the corner of the building and out of sight, Namjoon exhales like he’s just been punched and collapses on his knees to the pavement.

It’s a tense moment. Kai wants to step forward and comfort Namjoon somehow, the man looks so distraught, but Kai is so terribly aware of how little of the situation he knows. Adults can be so picky and weird when it comes to receiving support. “You _ are _ alright. Aren’t you, Mr. Kim?”

“I will be,” Namjoon answers. It doesn’t sound like much of an answer, though. “I have to be.”

Taehyun goes, “Why does everyone get so sad about money?” He reaches into his pocket and pulls free his wad of 50,000 won bills again. “Why can’t you just ask your parents for more? Don’t they have plenty? This isn’t even my allowance. It’s just… What do people call it? It’s just pocket change.” He holds out his arm to hand the cash to Namjoon.

It is actually a little sad how Namjoon’s face crumples further at the sight of it. Like he can’t be sure if what he is seeing is an illusion.

Before the man decides to reach for it and get his heart broken further, Kai grabs Taehyun’s wrist. “Can you stop being so careless about your cash?” And it comes out a little harsher than he intends, based on the hurt that crosses Taehyun’s face. Kai softens his tone. “You’re my dearest friend and I don’t want you to wind up looking silly or getting hurt when you keep doing stuff like this. We really need to sit you down and teach you the value of money and, I don’t know, the absolute need for empathy here.” Then Kai turns to Namjoon. He offers the man a hand to help him to his feet. “And I get the feeling that you really need someone to talk to.”

🌭

Yeonjun slowly circles clockwise around the classic car. He taps his finger to his chin and admires the vehicle like most people would admire works of art in a museum. Then again, the car  _ is _ a work of art. Pristine. Wonderfully maintained. The paint sparkles and gleams in the moonlight. Serious money has been sunk into the vehicle and that much is obvious just by glancing at her.

Yeonjun goes “Hmmmm” and then circles the car counterclockwise.

Sooby wordlessly follows behind him, nearly at his heels, and mirrors his thinking man pose. Then, when it seems like Yeonjun isn’t going to say or do anything beyond just pace back and forth, Sooby asks, “Well, what do you think?”

It’s like Yeonjun’s been waiting for someone to ask. “I think it’s really hard to, like, figure out what I can do for the others, you know? Everyone has their place but I feel like I’m still scrambling to find mine. Like, Beomgyu’s super smart and Kai can build anything and Taehyun is… super resourceful. But what can I do that no one else can?” He spins around to face the hybrid, props his chin in the crook between his thumb and index finger and smiles. “What do I bring to the table besides my dashing good looks and uncanny knowledge of… plants?”

Sooby looks at him.  _ Really _ looks at him. They’ve had this discussion before but usually not in the middle of mystery solving. Sooby curls his big, pouty lips into a frown then he places his big hands on either side of Yeonjun’s face so he can push their foreheads together and hum low in his throat. It’s the only way he knows how to soothe Yeonjun. “I meant, what do you think of the car?”

“She’s gorgeous,” Yeonjun concludes. He peels out of Sooby’s hold on him and continues to walk around the car. “Obviously.” 

Sooby leans towards the side mirror to admire his own reflection. He pushes his dark hair out of his eyes and flips one of his dog ears so that it is no longer inside out. Then something odd catches his attention. He pauses. Turns. Sniffs the air. “I smell beef.”

Immediately, Yeonjun experiences fear. Every muscle in his body tenses. He holds up his tiny little fists like he’s ready for a fight even though he is never ready for a fight. Is the hamburger monster close by? Are they about to get jumped? He’s about to hop into Sooby’s arms and make him carry him back to the other side of the parking lot when Sooby points to the passenger seat of the Cadillac. Yeonjun squints. Then he relaxes.

There’s a take-out bag sitting on the passenger seat.

The paper bag is decorated with weirdly smiling, green-headed aliens and flashy repeated patterns of biohazard symbols that probably shouldn’t be associated with edible food. “Atomic Burger,” Yeonjun reads the logo. “Radioactively good.” Then it clicks. “Hey. That’s the name of that new burger joint up the road!” He’s been loyal to the hot dog stand for years but, good grief, he’s suddenly craving burgers. He licks his lips. “Think the guy will notice if we steal his fries?” He starts reaching over the door.

A stranger’s voice says, “Yes. I most certainly will.”

Soob practically climbs onto Yeonjun’s back in fright.

Yeonjun struggles to turn them around to get a look at the bleached blonde man who had been speaking to Namjoon in the parking lot when they arrived.

He smiles at them, though it doesn’t feel friendly at all, and says, “For a man who told me he didn’t want kids, Namjoon sure has quite a few of them circling around him.”

Yeonjun frowns. He’s pretty sure this guy just insulted him by calling him a kid. He’s a teenager, for goodness sake! “Who are you?”

“The name’s Seokjin,” the guy says. He does not offer his hand out for a shake. He doesn’t even give the slightest nod of his head. He just shoos Yeonjun in an attempt to make him get out of the way.

“What do you want with Namjoon,” Yeonjun asks. He doesn’t move. He stands still and stares up at Seokjin with a defiant expression using courage he can only have when he’s not facing down a ghost or monster or zombie.

“Well, I used to want a future with him. Now I just want three months of back pay on the rent.” Seokjin takes his elbow to Yeonjun’s side and forcefully pushes him away from the Cadillac’s door. 

“You’re his landlord,” Sooby puts two and two together.

“Yes. If that wasn’t clear.” Seokjin unlocks the car and swings open the door. “A lot of the businesses on the boardwalk pay me rent. Like the arcade and the surf shop.”

“Oh!” Yeonjun forgets that he’s supposed to be upset with this guy. “What about that CBD store on the north end?”

“That tacky place? No. I’d never.” 

“Aww,” Yeonjun pouts. "Thought you could get me a discount."

Seokjin flops down onto the driver’s seat and cranks up the car. The engine purrs like a kitten and an upbeat reggaeton song spills out of the speakers. “And if Namjoon can’t come up with the money by next Friday,” Seokjin warns, “tell him he may as well move out of town and never show his face in front of me again.” With such ominous words, he drives away. His blonde hair flutters in the breeze as the echoing sound of his own wild, maniacal laughter trails behind him into the night.

🌭

Beomgyu’s never really needed to go  _ behind _ Interstellar Hot Dog before so he’s not entirely sure what to expect. There’s a chain link fence, probably for security purposes, but the gate is wide open so he walks right on through. 

Hmm. What looks suspicious? What looks out of place? What looks like it’s related to the monster? He searches for anything that shouldn’t belong.

The Dumpsters look like they belong there so he only spends a handful of seconds snooping around them. As expected, they reek. “Have the guys been missing garbage day lately,” he questions. Because it looks like they haven’t had a trash pick up in a month. That just doesn’t seem right. Could all of this trash be recent? What can one hot dog stand do to produce so much trash so quickly? 

Fortunately, he’s a genius so he  _ did _ bring a pair of latex gloves just in case something like this came up. He stoops down to fish them out of his bright orange knee-high socks and then slips them on. With the gloves keeping his hands from getting filthy, he carefully undoes the knots tied into the drawstrings of the garbage bags and snoops around a little.

There’s stuff that he expects, like heads of lettuce with browned leaves and bruised tomatoes and hollowed-out watermelon rinds. What he  _ doesn’t _ expect are the bags and bags full of shredded paper. It’s too dark behind the building to really read the shredded sections but they look like they are related to Interstellar Hot Dog’s finances. Accounting books, perhaps? Bill notices? The paperwork for bank loans? It is difficult to tell so Beomgyu shoves it all back where he got it, discards his gloves and ties up the drawstrings.

Beomgyu pushes his big glasses up his nose as if he needs any help seeing the empty crates stacked up like towers next to the restaurant’s back door. There’s also buckets full of mysteriously brackish water lined up in rows.

It takes a moment but the smell hits him as he walks farther along the fence, closer and closer to the restaurant. Old food, cigarette smoke, and that weird smell that only wet cardboard can get. The stench makes him pinch his nose as he walks.

Other than all of the trash, there really isn’t much to see. Discarded menus, broken chairs, a torn umbrella and junked equipment litter the asphalt and it amazes Beomgyu that someone who usually keeps such a close eye on detail like Mr. Kim will let the place get this trashed without doing anything about it.

There has to be a reason.

Beomgyu is so distracted by the odd amount of clutter that he forgets what he’s really looking for back here and almost misses a very large, four-wheeled clue parked off to his right.

He lets go of his nose. “Hey, isn’t that--” It’s Jimin and/or Jungkook’s car. He’s not all too familiar with car makes and models like Yeonjun is, but he recognizes the four rings on the grille as an Audi and makes an educated guess based on the paint job and the general boxiness of the vehicle’s shape that the car might be older than he is. “If the car is here, that means Jimin and Jungkook might be back.” Or perhaps they never left after their shift ended. Beomgyu isn’t completely sure who the car belongs to because Jimin and Jungkook carpool together to and from work. Plus he’s seen them both sit behind the wheel so it’s difficult to gauge if it belongs to either one of them or the other or if they share it like they seem to share so much else.

It seems to belong more to Jimin at the moment because he is the one who comes out of the restaurant’s back door hauling a large plastic crate. Jimin struggles beneath the weight of it, can hardly see around it to look where he’s going, but he still manages to immediately spot Beomgyu crouching next to the garbage bags.

“What the heck are you doing out here,” Jimin demands. He swivels a bit as if to use his body to block Beomgyu’s view of the crate.

Beomgyu swallows hard, not used to being caught so instantly. “I can ask the same thing of you.”

They stare at each other for a moment. They’ve both clearly been caught doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

Beomgyu clears his throat and asks, “What are you up to, Jimin?”

Jimin rolls his eyes. He’s not wearing his unnecessary sunglasses and it’s a bit startling how expressive his eyes are. He looks angry. Or perhaps embarrassed. “What I’m doing is none of your business!” He resumes his march across the asphalt to the car and, after spending a few seconds shifting the weight of the crate to one arm, he lifts the trunk lid and sets the crate down inside the vehicle.

Beomgyu isn’t really standing close enough to get the best look, but he can see that the crate is full of some kind of electronic equipment. A lot of buttons and sliding levers. It clicks in his head. It’s… sound mixing equipment? Something a DJ would use. And that’s odd in and of itself because what would a hot dog stand need with that kind of machinery? And why is Jimin hauling it away in the trunk of his car?

“Get lost, kid,” Jimin snaps as he slams the trunk shut. 

Beomgyu musters up his courage. “What are you doing out here? Isn’t it late? Isn’t your shift over? I thought you went home. Where’s Jungkook? What’s in the trunk?”

Jimin doesn’t even bother to answer the flood of questions. “Just go somewhere and do your homework, kid.” And then he gets into the car, cranks up and revs the engine.

Beomgyu has to run to the side to avoid getting hit as Jimin drives through the fence’s open gate.

Whatever Jimin’s got in the trunk, he sure hates that he got caught with it and he definitely seems in a hurry to get far away from here with it.

Not exactly employee of the month behavior.

Now things are getting properly layered and complicated. It’s almost worthy of a time-tested catchphrase but the timing isn’t exactly optimal so Beomgyu holds his tongue. 

Excited to check out the rest of the restaurant for clues, he turns around and runs. He leaves the smelly back lot of the hot dog stand behind and circles around the chain link fence, around the corner of the building, then he sprints to get back to the customer parking lot.

He doesn’t make it far.

“Oof.”

He bodily collides with something--or someone, rather--and the next thing he knows, he’s falling face-forward onto the asphalt. Fortunately, whoever he ran into hits the ground first, leaving Beomgyu with quite a bit of cushioning to bounce off of.

“Ouchies, man.”

It’s Yeonjun. 

The shaggy haired guy sucks air into his lungs as if to scream but then recognizes Beomgyu on top of him. His scream pauses on the tip of his tongue but the surprise remains in his eyes. “Wow, man,” he says. A slow grin curls the corners of his lips. “Is that a rocket in your pocket or are you just that excited to see me?”

Beomgyu rolls his eyes. He sits up off of Yeonjun’s torso, reaches into his pants pocket and pulls out his big, long, chunky magnifying glass. He never leaves the house without his handy dandy mystery-solving gadget. He holds the magnifying glass up in front of Yeonjun’s face and, through the glass, watches Yeonjun frown with what seems to be disappointment. Beomgyu stands up first and then offers a hand to Yeonjun. “What are you doing,” he asks.

Yeonjun runs his hands down his shorts to wipe them off before he grabs Beomgyu’s hand and stands up. “I was just about to go looking for you but then… well, yeah.”

“Did you find out anything?”

“Possibly,” Yeonjun says, scrunching up his face.

Cool. Beomgyu might have something too. “Let’s meet up with the others,” he suggests, “so we can go over everything.”

So they walk across the parking lot towards Kai and Taehyun squatting in front of something on the ground. Nice. They’ve found something as well. The puzzle is that much closer to being complete.

Through the magnifying glass, Beomgyu peers at the world around him. First at simple things, like the peeling paint on the restaurant’s walls and then at slightly more complicated things, like Namjoon’s car being gone. He must have left soon after talking with Kai and Taehyun. At least whatever tripped the alarm wasn’t a serious, time-consuming issue.

Beomgyu keeps searching.

It’s a little difficult with how heavily the shadows stretch across the grass, but he’s sure that he sees more sound equipment sitting around the property. Stage lights sit on the ground and point up at the sky. Speakers and smaller, indeterminate boxes line the edge of the parking lot. Beomgyu realizes he’s seen setups like this at theaters or in front of outdoor stages or something. But as far as he knows, Interstellar Hot Dog doesn’t put on live performances. The only music the crowd gets is whatever bouncy synth tunes are playing on the 80s station of the satellite radio.

Intriguing.

“Where’s Sooby,” Beomgyu asks as he looks around.

Yeonjun looks around for several seconds and then spots the hybrid’s long brown tail poking out of the nearby bushes. “Uhh. Looks like he’s, umm, shall we say, marking his territory.”

“Got it.” Beomgyu doesn’t need a more detailed explanation. He resumes peering through his magnifying glass but, for some strange reason, can’t stop staring at the sharp slope of Yeonjun’s nose or the cute little curve of his ear or the absolutely obvious way Yeonjun smiles at him.

Yikes. Beomgyu may have it bad. He forces himself to observe something else through his magnifying glass.

A few seconds later, the two of them walk up behind Kai and Taehyun.

Yeonjun nudges Kai in the back with his foot. “What did you guys find?”

“Good. You’re here.” Kai stands up and points at the goopy pool of brownish liquid on the pavement. “We think the hamburger monster left this as it walked. Well, as it  _ ran _ . At us.” He waves a hand towards similar streaks of moist slop on the ground. They sort of zig zag like footprints and it all smells faintly of French fries. “See? The trail goes from here back to the restaurant. It was left by the monster for sure.”

And that’s all well and good, but Beomgyu sees something through his magnifying glass that truly, genuinely sparks his curiosity.  _ Now _ is the time to say his catchphrase! “Jinkies!”

Taehyun gasps. This is huge! “Beomgyu said jinkies.”

Everyone knows what  _ that _ means.

“What is it,” asks Yeonjun. He props his chin on Beomgyu’s shoulder in an attempt to look through the magnifying glass along with him. He can’t quite tell what Beomgyu is looking at, though. “What sparked the big ‘aha’ moment?”

Kai leans towards his friend’s face. “What do you see?”

Beomgyu waves his arm towards their usual picnic table. The one that sits closest to the white sand of the beach. “All of our food is gone.”

Kai and Taehyun and Sooby spin around to look.

Sure enough, their hastily abandoned ‘midnight snack’ has been cleared away as if they never left it sitting out here.

Kai checks his wristwatch. “We haven’t been gone all that long,” he states. “That means someone or something came through here and cleaned everything up in the last half hour.”

It was also a tiny little reminder that they probably should have come back to clean it up themselves.

Taehyun bites his bottom lip as he thinks. “Could it have been Namjoon?”

“Seems unlikely,” Kai tells him. “He was coming from further inland when he saw us on the side of the road. Plus, he could have only gotten about a minute or so ahead of us on the drive. He was already talking with Seokjin when we got there, remember? When would he have the time to get around to such a big mess?”

Sooby joins their little mystery-solving huddle and slings one arm over Yeonjun’s shoulders and the other arm around Beomgyu’s shoulders. “Do you think Seokjin cleaned it up?”

There is a brief pause as they all think about it and then they all laugh.

“Nah,” Kai snickers.

Yeonjun shakes his head. “He was just as spotless as his car. How could he have cleaned up our greasy, chili-covered food without dirtying all of his white clothing?”

They were quickly running out of cleaning culprits. Which was bad because that may give them a clue to the identity of the hamburger culprit.

“Jimin was here,” Beomgyu remembers. “He was sneaking around out back. Possibly committing theft. I don’t even think Namjoon or Seokjin knew he was here.”

“He may have been here long enough to see who cleaned up the mess,” Taehyun suggests.

“Or he could have been the one to do the cleaning,” Yeonjun remarks.

“But do you think Jimin would clean up after  _ us _ ?” Kai brings up a good point. 

Sooby asks the most important question. “Do you think Jimin has something to do with the monster?”

Beomgyu hates himself for not connecting the dots sooner. “There’s a strong possibility!” Yet even as he sits there and considers it, the logic slowly crumbles. “But what would be his motive? He wouldn’t gain much of anything at all. He’s worked for Namjoon for years. Ever since I can remember. And if he scares away the customers, his own job would be at stake.”

Kai hums in agreement. “Namjoon was extremely worried about not being able to make rent. If he doesn’t pull a profit this month, he would have to close his doors.”

“And, like, Seokjin’s more than ready to, like, totally run him out of town,” Yeonjun tells them.

“Oh man,” Sooby moans. “We can’t lose the Interstellar Hot Dog! They’ve got the best mustard in town!”

Kai fishes his keys out of his pocket. “Come on, gang. Let’s finish the discussion on the road.”

So they follow him back to the van. It’s not a chilly night by any means, but the parking lot is dark and the evening is still and quiet. Not all of them have genius-level intellect but they don’t all need genius-level intellect to know that the safest place for them would be piled into a locked car. Especially with greasy, fat-dripping hamburger monsters lurking around their favorite eating spot.

“I say we try to figure out who would actually benefit from the hot dog stand closing down,” Kai states as he shuts his door. “What have we learned?”

Taehyun starts, “I learned that the massive and mostly negative impact of capitalism on our nation has created a gargantuan socioeconomic gap that is doomed to only further increase. And this class divide systematically benefits the wealthy and further restricts and oppresses the poor by stripping away the basic liberty of choice by hiding it behind a wall of unaffordability.”

Kai decides to be more specific. “What have we learned about the hamburger monster?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Sooby interjects. “Seokjin clearly has something to do with it.”

“A lovely deduction,” says Beomgyu kindly. “Though I highly doubt that Seokjin fits the bill.”

“What makes you so sure,” asks Sooby, unconvinced.

It’s Taehyun who goes, “He’s the landlord. Rents out quite a few of the buildings the businesses on the boardwalk use. Would he mess up his own income by scaring away customers?”

Yeonjun snaps his fingers as he remembers. “But Seokjin and Namjoon used to be an item. Like, they were involved with each other romantically but I think Seokjin got dumped. Man, he could be trying to muck things up for Namjoon as a form of personal revenge!”

A possibility.

“He also had a bag from that burger place,” Sooby reminds him. 

“But Seokjin doesn’t own that property, does he?” Beomgyu taps his chin as he thinks it through. “He would buy from his competitors?”

Kai says, “Well, technically, he’s the landlord not the business owner. Is the burger place really his competition? Though, if his rent is at stake…”

Once again, it takes longer than usual for Beomgyu to make the connection. “Do you think someone associated with Atomic Burger is behind… well, the hamburger monster?”

They all sit on that for a few seconds.

“Well, gang, we’ve only got half the story here.” Kai cranks up the van. “We have to go to Atomic Burger.”

“Good,” says Sooby, “because I’m starving.”

They rumble across the parking lot and then turn onto the narrow street that runs parallel to the boardwalk. Although they are very close to the beach, it’s not always easy to see it. Palm trees and tall hotels and parking decks often block the view from the road but, every now and then, there is a gap between properties and they get a good look at the full moon hanging low over the waves.

“Yoongi texted me back,” Taehyun announces with a big, toothy grin on his face. “Finally!” His whole expression turns a bit ghastly because of the low angle of the bluish-white light from his phone screen. “Gosh. Give me a second to read through this absolutely bonkers wall of text.”

“Hmm. Yoongi’s cool,” Beomgyu hums. “If you can find it in a book, I probably know it, but if it’s gossip about people in town, he definitely knows it.”

“Must be nice,” says Yeonjun, “to have a butler on call to just conveniently provide info whenever we need it.”

“It’s alright, I guess,” Taehyun mumbles, not realizing Yeonjun is poking fun. “Isn’t he just doing his job? Ugh. He can be a pain in the neck sometimes. Especially when he tries to get me to do my own chores or--” He shivers. “--makes me eat my vegetables.”

“Oh, how terrible,” Yeonjun goes on. His voice drips with sarcasm.

But perhaps Taehyun doesn’t catch it. “You’re right. It’s awful!” 

Kai realizes what Yeonjun is doing and rushes straight in for the defense. “Yoongi helps us out so much,” he states. “If it weren’t for him knowing people who know people who know people, we wouldn’t have solved half of these mysteries over the years.”

And that’s true. They all contribute something, don’t they? They are Mystery Inc. They couldn’t function properly if one of their pieces were missing!

“Have you finished reading yet,” Sooby questions, ruffling up Taehyun’s impeccable hair.

Taehyun squawks and ducks beneath Sooby’s hand before the hybrid causes too much damage to his hairstyle. “I’m only halfway done,” he loudly complains. “Now stop talking to me so I can finish reading this. He even typed out a list of reference links. I don’t need any of these. I already have thirty tabs open from all of the other times.”

They let him have his peace and quiet. At least for a little while.

Kai slows down for a red light and a group of tourists stroll across the sidewalk, heading further inland. They carry their beach towels and chairs and umbrellas and roll their beverage coolers behind them. It had to have been quite dark out on the sand at this hour. Either that or they made a lengthy pit stop at one of the many beachside restaurants. One that clearly stays open later than Interstellar Hot Dog. Kai checks his wristwatch. It’s 11:11 PM on the dot and it may be a little childish but he squeezes his eyes shut and makes a quick wish.

They’ll solve this mystery tonight. 

They’ve  _ got _ to.

The light turns green and Kai accelerates. The colorful boardwalk buildings whirl past them.

“Maybe it’s Namjoon who is at the bottom of this,” says Sooby in a soft, quiet, unsure voice.

“I think we’ve established that Namjoon is innocent,” Kai speaks up. “He’s so stressed out. He doesn’t want any of this happening at all. It’s clearly out of his control.”

“Yeah. He’s not handling all of this well,” Beomgyu adds. “The hot dog stand looks perfectly fine from the front but go around the back and that’s where the mess is.”

“I think that applies to everyone on the planet,” Yeonjun says. There’s a dirty joke in there somewhere that he’s  _ this _ close to elaborating on, but--

Taehyun half-yells, “Finally! I finished reading.” He drops his phone into his lap and rubs at his eyes like it really was that strenuous for him. “To kind of summarize, he said Seokjin used to be a mid-level manager for one of my mom’s companies. His dad got him the position and he was actually competent despite being kinda young at the time. Though you can imagine how little he was respected in the beginning and how hard a few of the employees worked to undermine all of his decision-making.” He lifts his phone back up and glances over the wall of text as if he needs to refresh his memory already. “But he ran into some kind of issue. Yoongi didn’t specify. Just said it was ‘an HR issue’ which can really mean anything without much context. Whatever it was, it dragged on for several weeks and eventually led to Seokjin quitting the job altogether and then starting up his own venture buying up and renting out properties on the boardwalk. He’s actually been doing that longer than I would have guessed. Seven years? The first building he bought was the froyo spot on the very end of the boardwalk.” Taehyun pauses again to look over the monstrous wall of text on his screen. He clears his throat and presses on. “He stayed in relatively good standing with my parents, though. Even tried to marry into the family at one point? One of my cousins or perhaps one of my sisters? Gosh. I don’t know. Must not have gone well if I haven’t seen him until today.”

“Do you think that’s the motive,” Kai asks.

“Think what’s the motive,” Sooby squeaks out.

Kai elaborates. “Leaving the company. Not being able to marry into the Kang family.”

There’s a chance. Revenge usually takes a couple of years to get hot and ready.

But...

“How can that be the motive,” Beomgyu questions. “Unless Namjoon took the mid-level manager job away from Seokjin, which he didn’t because he only runs Interstellar Hot Dog and the Kang family don’t have a stake in the food service industry.”

“Unless,” Yeonjun says, “Namjoon is the family Seokjin tried to marry. Remember? They had a thing at some point and were apparently a bit serious about it.”

Taehyun frowns. “I don’t think Namjoon and I are related. I don’t pay a lot of attention but I do pay  _ enough _ . Namjoon’s not even from around here, remember?”

“Plus,” Beomgyu points out, “why on earth would Seokjin try to run his own tenant off the property?”

Kai gasps and goes, “Do you think Seokjin wants to run him out so he can do something else with that property? Turn it into a more lucrative business?”

It’s a possibility.

But…

“Namjoon’s already falling behind on the rent by several months,” Yeonjun reminds them. “If Seokjin wanted to boot him out, he could have done so already and claimed that it was because of the overdue payments.”

“So it’s looking less and less like Seokjin’s behind this after all.” Yeonjun groans. “I was totally off! What a red herring.”

“Don’t get upset. Investigations are all about testing every theory and trying every road,” Beomgyu encourages him. “Even if we wind up at a dead end.”

“Seokjin’s just mean,” Sooby concludes. “The culprit’s gotta be someone else.”

“There’s still Jimin,” Yeonjun growls out. “He’s never liked us, now that I think about it. And I don’t think he likes Namjoon much either. He probably wants to ruin the business so he won’t have to go through the effort of quitting.”

Sooby shakes his head. “But it’s just a job at a hot dog stand. Would he be behind something so elaborate and keep it up for this long when all he has to do is hand in his two week’s notice?

“Let’s not jump to conclusions and apply unnecessary bias to future evidence,” Beomgyu advises. “The most likely culprit is still someone associated with Atomic Burger.”

“Speak of the devil,” Kai grumbles.

Atomic Burger sits on the corner of the next intersection and, just like its namesake, it glows very brightly. Like it’s radioactive. All of the restaurant’s signage and decor and outdoor menus let off an eerily familiar green light that almost seems to surround the building like an oozing cloud. And, unlike the hot dog stand down the road that’s shuttered-up for the night, Atomic Burger is not only open but  _ crowded _ .

Yeonjun leans forward in his seat to get a better look out the front windshield. “Man, I can’t wait to try, like, every combo they’ve got on the menu.”

Sooby also leans forward. He licks his lips which isn’t quite enough to keep the drool from trailing down his chin. “Everything looks so good. Look! They’ve got a mushroom and cheese burger!” 

“They better have some good chili,” says Yeonjun.

“And good mustard.”

“Man, I don’t think they’ll have good mustard. Not better than ‘stellar. Hey. See what I did there?” Yeonjun elbows Sooby in the side. “Namjoon should run me my money. I just gave him a new slogan!”

Sooby wags his tail. “Nothing’s better than ‘stellar!”

The only available park Kai can find puts them quite a ways from the front door but they’ll have to deal with the long walk on a night like this. He pulls up the parking brake and shuts off the engine. “Alright, gang. We might be here to finish up our midnight snack but we are also here to dig up some clues.”

“As long as we can find those clues between two buns, I’m your man,” Yeonjun declares.

“Yeah,” Sooby agrees. “If they’re found anywhere else, we probably won’t be able to help you. Just a head’s up.”

“We’ll keep our expectations low,” Beomgyu says.

“In other words,” Taehyun adds, “nothing out of the ordinary. Business as usual.”

They all climb out of the van and start the walk across the busy parking lot. Kai stays close to Taehyun while Beomgyu doesn’t even mind when Yeonjun flings an arm over his shoulders.

At least Kai will never lose track of the van in a crowded lot like this. It’s big enough with loud enough paint that he can spot it from a distance. Sure, the van’s a little tacky, but so many people associate it with Kai and the gang that it would be  _ criminal _ to think of changing up the design scheme.

Atomic Burger doesn’t sit as close to the beach as Interstellar Hot Dog does. It’s not even directly on the boardwalk. But it does sit relatively close to the amusement park and it is a bit eerie seeing all of the rides and shops that are usually so colorful and lit up for evening hours be all dark and closed-up for the night.

“We should split up and search for clues again,” Kai suggests. Atomic Burger isn’t all that big of a place. It’ll be super easy to cover more ground separately, though the gang have never had to snoop around a place so highly populated before. “Taehyun and I will try to get some info out of the employees.”

Beomgyu pushes his glasses up his nose and says, “And Soob, Yeonjun and I should probably try to do some snooping in the employees-only sections and attempt to dig up some evidence.”

“And try to get some food samples,” Yeonjun tacks on.

As soon as they make it inside of the fast food restaurant, they split up to search for clues. Taehyun and Kai head to the right, towards the line for placing orders.

Beomgyu, Yeonjun and Sooby head left, towards the swinging doors with a sign that states that the rooms beyond them are designated for authorized personnel only. 

Atomic Burger is designed exactly like what it sounds like: a neon-colored, space-themed relic from the 90s with PS1 graphics even though it’s only been about four or so months since the place has been built. The walls are painted so that they look like Nickelodeon slime is dripping down from the ceiling, there are plastic UFOs hanging on the walls like fine art, the chairs are appropriately themed and are shaped like astronaut helmets, the tables are painted black and topped with sparkling mica that makes it all look like solid slabs of deep space.

It’s a little hard to look at, honestly, but… 

“I see the appeal,” Taehyun admits. “Very kitschy. Very nostalgic. The green-headed aliens on the ceiling add a nice, intergalactic touch.” He pulls out his phone, opens up the camera and snaps a quick selfie. “The lighting is perfect. I feel so immersed.” He posts the photo to Instagram after slapping a filter on it and adjusting the color balance.

“It’s--” Kai struggles with his words as he looks around, moving forward in the line. It’s… tacky? Overboard? Indigestible? Horrid? Nauseating? “--special.”

But the food looks deliciously sloppy. Bacon seems to come on everything. The burgers practically drown in thick, woodsy-smelling barbecue sauce and-- “They have  _ waffle fries _ ,” Taehyun exclaims. His smile goes wide. “Oh man. Everyone knows waffle fries are superior. It’s why I send Yoongi to the next town over for Chick-fil-a!”

Kai’s stomach growls. He only had ice cream back at the hot dog stand and he’s paying for it now as he realizes how hungry he’s been all night. He takes in all the sights and sounds and smells of the crowded restaurant. Gosh. One look at the menu and he wants to try everything. There’s something called a Nuclear Fission? And something topped with mini donuts and chicken strips called a Hadron Collider? Kai wants to order it all. Then he remembers that he can’t betray Namjoon like that and reminds himself that they are here for a not-so-diplomatic reason. “I don’t just see tourists here. I see some locals too.”

Now that Taehyun looks around, he sees quite a few familiar faces at the tables. People who they usually see sitting at Interstellar Hot Dog’s picnic tables. “This place really  _ is _ stealing Mr. Kim’s business,” Taehyun notes. Every table looks occupied. “I doubt the food is too much better so I bet it’s because this place is open late.” 

It’s summer. It’s the beach. People don’t want to be restrained by something as arbitrary as a ‘normal sleeping schedule.’

Kai takes a page out of Beomgyu’s book and says, “It’s a possibility.” Though he also wonders how many people flocked here because they had heard rumors of the freaky occurrences in the hot dog stand’s parking lot. Though he isn’t exactly the best gauge of character for that. If he heard a place was haunted, he ran  _ towards _ it instead of away from it like most normal people.

“Next,” says the dog hybrid behind the register.

Taehyun and Kai step forward.

The hybrid’s big like Sooby but not really as tall. Based on the hybrid’s spotted ears and spotted tail, he’s a dalmatian. Based on the name tag pinned to his tacky green and yellow shirt, his name is V. 

V sings out, “Welcome to Atomic Burger, home of the Atomic Burger. Can I take your order? Heh.”

Kai leans over the counter towards the tall, skinny dog. He lowers his voice like he wants to get V in on a secret. “Actually, we wanted to ask you some questions.”

Taehyun goes first, “What’s the name of the burger that’s two premium beef patties with cheese and then there’s lettuce, tomato, black olives, bacon and mildly spicy sauce on top?”

Kai spins around to give him a funny look but Taehyun just raises his eyebrows and goes “What?”

V says, “Sounds like the Thermal Reactor to me.”

And it bugs Taehyun a little how quickly V identifies the thing that attacked them.

V elaborates, “It’s one of our most popular burgers. It’s our mascot after all.” He points straight up.

Kai and Taehyun follow his finger to the wall above V’s head.

Taehyun nearly screams.

Staring down at them from its shiny bronze frame is a photograph of the very hamburger monster that chased them.

🌭

Slipping through the restaurant’s kitchen is actually quite easy.

The workers are so busy keeping up with the onslaught of orders that they don’t even look up when Yeonjun, Sooby and Beomgyu tip-toe through.

“Do you think they make their own relish,” Yeonjun questions, his breath hot on Beomgyu’s neck.

“Do you think they make their own mayo,” Sooby wonders. 

Yeonjun goes on, “Because, like, they’ve got to be putting something in the food if they’ve got a crowd like this, man.”

Beomgyu ignores them. When they start in on discussions of food, they can go on and on. Beomgyu goes around a corner towards the back of the kitchen and realizes that they don’t have too many other places to look. One of the doors goes out to the parking lot. It’s propped open with a broom and Beomgyu can see one of the employees having a smoke break through the crack. Figuring that way is off limits, Beomgyu turns his head.

“That way,” Beomgyu says, pointing to a set of doors across the way.

When there’s no affirming grunts behind him, Beomgyu looks over his shoulder and realizes he’s walking out of the kitchen by himself.

Beomgyu rolls his eyes.

Of course!

He turns around quickly, almost slips on the damp tile floor, and retraces his steps.

Past the overflowing trash cans. Past the walk-in freezer. Past the huge, steaming dishwasher.

He finds Sooby first. The hybrid’s just about to lift a basket of waffle fries out of a vat of bubbling cooking oil when Beomgyu grabs him by the ear and pulls him away. “We’re going to get caught,” he hisses into Sooby’s ear. “This is supposed to be quick. In and out. No pit stops!”

It takes a second but Sooby unhands the handle of the basket and watches them sink back into the bubbling oil. “Fine,” Sooby whines. “But you owe me fries tomorrow.”

“Okay, sure, whatever,” Beomgyu hastily agrees. “After school.” Beomgyu keeps his grip on Sooby’s dog ear tight as he keeps walking back through the kitchen.

Past the ovens radiating heat. Past the long rows of workstations as the employees expertly stack burgers with gloved hands.

Yeonjun’s a little harder to find. Even in his loud, tie-dye shirt, he just about blends in with the brightly-dressed workers and chefs. 

“Ugh. There he is,” complains Beomgyu as he turns and makes a beeline.

Yeonjun grabs a tray with a combo meal on it that’s probably supposed to go to an eat-in diner. Just before he feasts on the meal, Beomgyu steps forward, snatches the tray out of his hands and sets it back on the counter where it belongs.

“Aww man,” Yeonjun whines when he realizes he’s been robbed of a free meal.

Beomgyu doesn’t even have the patience left to scold him. He just reaches up, grabs Yeonjun by the ear and pulls both Yeonjun and Sooby out of the kitchen and through the promising set of doors he spotted earlier. The doors are heavy when he pushes on them and they swing back fast to knock him in the back of his legs.

It’s quiet in here and so much more dimly-lit than the kitchen just a few steps behind them. It takes seconds for Beomgyu’s eyes to adjust but by the time that they do, he really wishes he couldn’t see.

“It’s the monster,” Sooby howls.

All around them, there’s monster memorabilia. Posters hang on the walls. There’s tables stacked high with laminated menus. Chairs and stools that look like the monster’s face. Toys still in their packaging are stacked on the shelves. There are even shirts and hoodies with the frightening design plastered all over them, piled so high they don’t even fit in their respective boxes.

Beomgyu doesn’t even get a chance to let go of his friends’ ears and pull out his magnifying glass when a set of doors on the other side of the room opens and a short-haired man walks in.

The man spots them and his expression goes from surprise to confusion to anger in less than a breath. “Oh? What are you kids doing in here?”

“We don’t want any trouble,” Yeonjun says quickly. He holds up his hands in surrender.

“Please don’t hurt us,” Sooby begs, clamping his hands together.

“H-h-hurt you,” the man stutters out, like the thought has never occurred to him. His eyes go wide and he goes through a great deal of effort to soften his tone. “I’m not trying to hurt you.”

Beomgyu tries to remedy the situation. “We just want to ask questions. You’re the manager, right?” His eyes dart down to the man’s name tag. “Hoseok?”

“That’s me,” he says, though he doesn’t sound particularly thrilled to be interviewed in the middle of the messy, stuffy room.

Beomgyu goes on, “We just want to ask something.”

“Like what,” Hoseok asks, full of suspicion.

“What’s all this,” Beomgyu asks. He waves his hand at the hundreds and hundreds of hamburger monster faces all around them.

The man visibly relaxes. “Oh. This is just a room for trash.”

“All of this is trash,” Yeonjun asks, eyes wide. “It all looks like it’s in tip-top shape to me!”

“But look at it,” Hoseok insists. He points to the piles and piles of items on either side of them. “We paid good money to work with a top-class designer but they scammed us. Sent us photos of high-quality figurines and logos and things so we’d pay up and then sent us a truckload of this garbage as soon as the check cleared.” He puts his hands on his hips and kicks at one of the piles of merchandise. He sends it crashing to the floor in a noisy avalanche of plastic. “We were going to center our whole brand around this mascot but  _ look at it _ ! It’s terrifying. Kids run screaming when they see it. We had to rebrand right before opening. That’s why we’ve slapped aliens on everything.”

Beomgyu hums thoughtfully. “Nothing in here is missing, is it?”

Hoseok pauses with his mouth open. “I have no real way of keeping track of all of this mess. I can’t even  _ give _ it away, the kids think it’s that awful. For all I know, someone could--” He stops mid-sentence.

Beomgyu follows Hoseok’s gaze to the other side of the room.

On the far wall is an empty chair. A chair that very clearly used to have something sitting on it, judging by Hoseok’s reaction. “Someone took the mascot costume,” he admits.

🌭

“Well,  _ he _ was overly aggressive for no reason,” Taehyun gripes. “If Yoongi were here…”

“Let’s not make vague threats,” Kai speaks up.

“I was just saying we’d--”

“No, Tae. It’s not that serious.”

Taehyun sighs and stomps his foot in a mild tantrum. “He didn’t have to kick us to the curb!”

Kai shrugs. “Well, we were kind of holding up the line. And I definitely think we were on question fifteen or something. It’s expected that he got frustrated.” At the very least, when V told them their order total, Taehyun had learned from earlier in the night and had only attempted to hand over one of his 50,000 won bills. However, V had booted them out of the line without putting in their order or taking their money so the two of them stand off to the side in hopes that the rest of the gang has better luck in their clue search.

“Do you think he’s got anything to do with it,” wonders Taehyun. “He’s so shifty-eyed. The more we asked about the hot dog stand rumors, the faster he got pissed.”

“No. I doubt V is behind it,” Kai reasons. He tries to put himself in Beomgyu’s knee-high socks and think critically. Objectively. “Dog hybrids are absolutely lousy liars. When he said he didn’t know anything, I’m sure it was the truth…” A thought lodges itself in his head. “But there  _ was _ this look in his eyes when I asked him if someone who worked here had something to do with it. He tried to play it off, tried to tell me no one would be involved, but it’s like Sooby trying to convince me he didn’t get into the kettle-cooked chips.”

Taehyun nods slowly. “So we’re on the right track. Someone  _ here _ is behind it.” Movement out of the corner of his eye attracts his attention and he jerks his head towards it. “What about him? He looks properly criminal.”

Kai spins around.

Sooby, Yeonjun and Beomgyu look like they were just scolded by their parents, that’s how deeply they’re frowning, how low they hang their heads.

“Gang, what happened,” Kai yells, rushing up to them.

Standing behind them is a tall, slender, wiry-built man who does not look pleased at all that there’s  _ more _ of them. “You know each other?” 

Kai puts his hands on Yeonjun’s shoulders. “Are you guys in trouble?”

“Not… exactly?” Yeonjun says. “Not if we’re going by dictionary definitions.”

“What’s that supposed to mean,” Taehyun questions. He gently pats the top of Sooby’s head as if to calm him.

“It means they were caught where they shouldn’t be,” the man says. His name tag states that his name is Hoseok and that he’s the Restaurant Manager. “And you kids need to stop sticking your nose in other people’s business.” Hoseok shoves his hand in his pocket and pulls out his phone to make a call.

Kai peers over Beomgyu’s shoulder at the phone screen but is too slow to catch the name of the contact Hoseok dials before he lifts the phone to his ear.

“Well,” Taehyun lowers his voice so that he won’t be overheard, “did you guys find out anything?”

Sooby looks up. He gently pushes Taehyun away from him so that he can look at something behind him. Then his ears perk up and his tail wags. He sniffs the air hard and catches a scent that makes him even more excited. “Oh, hello!” But it’s not Kai or even  _ food _ that he grins so widely at.

Kai looks over his shoulder long enough to spot V at the register, taking another customer’s order. “I’m not even surprised,” he huffs.

Yeonjun also picks up on it. He only has to look at V for a short second before he determines the impossibility of the situation. “Oh no,” he says. He grips Sooby by the scruff of the neck just to keep him from getting any bright ideas. “Don’t even think about it. Remember the poodle?” He says it like he’s bringing up some great catastrophe from the past or possibly a prophecy of the future. “Remember the poodle?”

Sooby’s face falls. “Yeah. I remember the poodle.”

“So what did you guys find out,” Taehyun asks again in an attempt to keep them on track.

Beomgyu responds, “One of the employees took the mascot costume and we can only assume that’s a direct connection to the monster we saw.”

More of the puzzle pieces fall together.

“That confirms it, gang,” states Kai. “We’re closing in on the culprit. We’re on their tail. We’ve got them!”

And that’s exciting! Because it’s getting late and the sooner they handle this the sooner they can get to bed.

“Do you think Hoseok knows about the monster terrorizing Interstellar Hot Dog,” Kai asks.

They all look but Hoseok is  _ gone _ .

He doesn’t even seem to be inside the restaurant at all anymore.

Yeonjun points out the restaurant’s front door. “There!”

Hoseok is outside and he looks behind him to stare right at them through the glass of the door. The phone is still held to his ear and they don’t need to hear what he’s saying to see that he’s talking about them with whoever is on the other end of the line. When he realizes they are looking right back at him, he hurries away like he’s got something nasty to hide.

“Well,” Beomgyu says, “you asked if Hoseok has anything to do with it. I definitely think that’s our answer.”

🌭

It’s about five minutes out of their way (and it’s also about half an hour past midnight) but Kai drives the gang past the hot dog stand to take them to his house in order to pick up his latest invention. “It’s absolutely necessary,” he tells them, one hand on the steering wheel and the other carding through his curly, floppy hair. “I’ve built something perfect to help us out. It’ll launch a net we can use to trap the monster.”

“That’s assuming the monster will show up twice in one night,” Taehyun states. “They usually don’t, you know.”

Beomgyu chuckles. “As much of a fuss as we made back at Atomic Burger, I’m pretty sure the monster will mysteriously pop up to keep us from finding out too much.”

That was usually how things went when they were solving mysteries around town. It sometimes took days to gather clues and run into new suspects and interview witnesses and dust off new theories and motives. Connecting the dots took a lot of work sometimes! The closer they got to the truth, the more of a target they became. What was it about people not wanting their dark secrets exposed? They really will do next to anything to cover up their dirty tracks!

“Hoseok definitely called someone about us,” Yeonjun notes. “I’m relatively decent at reading lips and he brought up the hot dog stand to whoever was on the other end of the line just as he was leaving.”

Sooby growls low in his throat. “For all we know, he could be beating us to the scene.”

“We’ll have to make this stop quick, then,” says Kai. “We have to get back to the hot dog stand fast. I need time to set up my machine so we don’t want whoever is behind all of this to beat us to the secret and keep us from finding out the truth.”

Kai steers the van into the driveway of a really narrow two-story townhome and cuts off the engine. It’s a little on the kitschy side, with pink plastic flamingos in the yard and sea-shell themed  _ everything _ from one end of the porch to the other, but Kai’s dad loves the ocean. Perhaps that’s why he’s so good at sailing and fishing and clam hunting and all of the things Kai isn’t quite good at yet.

“So the culprit is someone who works at the burger joint,” Yeonjun deduces. “That means it’s either V or Hoseok. They both were pretty suspicious tonight.”

“Hoseok definitely didn’t like us snooping around in the back,” Sooby says. “He got way angry.”

“And V got quite defensive when we hit him with those questions,” Taehyun remembers.

“Though maybe we did come off a little harsh,” Kai mutters.

“Let’s focus on bringing down the monster first,” Beomgyu says. He has the majority of the puzzle pieces laid out in his head and the more and more he goes over them, the clearer the picture becomes… and he’s not so sure he’s happy with the image that he sees. Then again, he could be wrong and that’s why they have to work to catch the monster  _ before  _ it catches them. Beomgyu shifts in his seat to look over at Kai. “Didn’t you say you were in a hurry?”

“Right. Right.” Kai unbuckles his seatbelt, throws open his door and practically sprints towards his home. He’s so long-limbed. It doesn’t take him long. But he also doesn’t see the inflatable pool in the yard because it’s dark out and it’s hard to see anything in the tall, unkempt grass of the front yard so he trips over it and sloshes water all over the place and nearly tumbles to the ground.

Yeonjun and Sooby snicker as they watch, hands held up over their mouths, but Kai regains his balance and only slows down to wait for the garage door to open after he smashes his finger into the button on his key ring. When it lifts up high enough for him to get under, he crawls beneath the garage door and vanishes into the shadows on the other side.

After a few moments, a dull, yellow lamp comes on but it does a poor job of allowing the boys in the van to see what Kai is up to. Even Sooby can only make out Kai’s elongated shadow as he moves about between his dad’s tool shelves and workbenches.

It takes two or three minutes but Kai eventually comes back out of the garage carrying his invention. 

He looks a little epic, the way the light casts him into a dramatic, heroic silhouette. 

Taehyun kind of can’t take his eyes off the guy. 

The garage door slowly closes behind Kai as he lifts his invention up onto his shoulder. It’s hard to tell exactly what it is, since so many of its parts are wrapped up in duct tape and held together by nothing stronger than Elmer’s glue and a prayer, but the  _ majority _ of Kai’s inventions look like this. Like slapped-together, spray-painted, taped-up messes made from scrap metal and plywood he scrounges up in the junkyard.

He wobbles to and fro a bit beneath the weight of the machine as he crosses the yard towards the van and maybe somebody should get out the van to help him.

Well, Taehyun has never lifted anything heavy his entire life and Beomgyu only lifts books and cups of coffee and is equally unfit for labor. 

Yeonjun is the one who pulls back the van’s sliding door. He meets Kai halfway across the grassy yard and helps hoist the huge thing the rest of the way to the van and then up into the back seat.

“Sorry, gang,” Kai explains. “I had to duct tape a fan to the side of it to keep the motor from overheating.”

“If you can’t duct it,” Beomgyu starts, “fuc-”

“Hurry up, we have to go,” Taehyun exclaims. “I have to be home in less than an hour and we all remember what happened the last time I was late, right? Yoongi hunted me down faster than any of these monsters ever could.”

“We’re going, we’re going,” Kai huffs. “Fingers crossed this extension cord is long enough. I couldn’t find the white one I always use.” 

Yeonjun crawls into the back and barely has the room to squeeze in next to Sooby now that the machine takes up over half the room. 

Kai slides the side door shut and then climbs back into the driver’s seat. He cranks up the van and throws the gear shift into reverse. Maybe it’s on purpose when he puts his hand on Taehyun’s shoulder as he twists around to look out the van’s back window as he steers out of the driveway. Or maybe he means to put his hand down on the back of the seat. Who knows? Regardless, he swings them back out onto the road, spins back around and puts the van in first gear. “Now hold on. I know a shortcut and the road can get a little bumpy.”

He spins tires when he slams his foot on the gas.

🌭

They pull back up into Interstellar Hot Dog’s parking lot for the third time that night. 

Third time’s the charm, as the saying goes. And if they’ve got luck on their side this go around, they’ll run into the monster again. The first time they encountered it, the five of them weren’t prepared but, right now, with Kai’s latest invention taking up all of the room in the back seat, it won’t take long at all to trap the beast and find out who is behind all of this mess.

Their night is almost at an end. The mystery is nearly solved.

It’s almost sad. But it’s mainly thrilling. A long day of fishing, of waiting, before landing the big catch.

Just like with fishing, they need some really good bait to stick on the hook. And what better bait do they have than Yeonjun and Sooby?

Or at least that’s what Kai says as he swings open his door and hops out of the van.

“You’re kidding,” Yeonjun gripes. “Again? We’re playing the bait  _ again _ ?”

“Ahh nah,” complains Sooby. “It’s not gonna be us! It’s  _ always _ us. Why can’t it be one of you guys this time?”

“Because I’m wearing Valentino,” says Taehyun. “And my feet hurt. And I don’t want to smudge my makeup.”

“And because I have to operate the machine,” says Kai after he slides open the van’s side door and starts tugging his invention out of the vehicle. “I’m the only one who even knows what button to press.” Even though he’s a tall dude, he still looks comically small beneath the cobbled-together contraption.

“No. It’s not gonna be us, man.” Yeonjun folds his arms over his chest and snorts. “Ain’t no way. Ain’t no how.”

“We aren’t gonna go.” Sooby joins him with crossed arms and a defiant attitude. “Your chances of getting us to go out there are zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada!” 

“ _ No bueno _ !” Yeonjun shouts.

Sooby makes a noise like a buzzer on a game show. “Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.”

“You are  _ not _ the father.”

“We can’t come to the phone right now. Leave a message after the beep.”

“You’re out of vowels!”

Taehyun lets out a frustrated sigh. They kick up a fuss but usually end up doing it anyways. He doesn’t get the point of the commotion.

“Aww come on, you guys,” Beomgyu sings. He has to kick the glove compartment to get it open but the snack box he’s looking for is always there. He grabs it, peels back the flaps and shoves his hand inside of it. Then he turns around to lean into the back seat. “Will you do it for a Scooby Snack? I mean, errr, umm, a snickerdoodle?” He holds one golden cookie out towards Sooby and the other out towards Yeonjun.

The two of them do not stop their huffing and puffing and arm crossing. 

“Nope. No way, man,” says Yeonjun. “Tonight was supposed to be fun and simple and cool. Just quality time with my friends. Yet here we are, neck deep in all this trouble and we still have half of my brownies left!”

“Yeah,” Sooby shuts his eyes and turns away. “We just came here for the food.”

“We didn’t sign up for this.”

“Can we get refunds?”

“I want my friendship back.”

“This is cruel and unusual punishment.”

Kai leans back into the van. “Come on, gang. Get a move on. I have to get this all set up and I really need everyone’s help.”

They are running out of time here. What if the monster comes back before they can lay the trap? They’ll be sitting ducks like this.

Taehyun crawls across the bench seat to let himself out the driver’s side door. “Stop whining and complaining, you two,” he calls out over his shoulder. “We have work to do.”

Sooby and Yeonjun will not be swayed. They settle even further into their seats.

“Nope. Not happening, man,” says Yeonjun. “Not enough in it for me.”

Sooby nods emphatically. “None of this is in my contract. You’re going to have to speak to my agent.”

Beomgyu reaches back into the box. He grabs more treats. “Will you do it for  _ two _ snickerdoodles?”

It’s an extremely tempting offer. Sooby cracks open one eye and gazes at the cookies in Beomgyu’s hands. Snickerdoodles are his  _ favorite _ but he must resist! Even if he salivates. Even if his tail happily thumps against the back seat involuntarily. Even if his stomach growls.

Beomgyu knows he almost has them. Just a little bit more and he’ll tip the scales in his favor. He reaches back into the box only to discover that there’s nothing but crumbs left behind. Of course they run out right when they really need some! But wait. Wait! He shoves his hand further into the box. There’s one more cookie way at the bottom! He pulls the cookie out of the box and easily snaps it in half. “Will you do it for two and a half snickerdoodles?” He holds out the cookies and hopes that the bribe is enough.

It’s not.

Sooby goes ‘harrumph’ and turns away again, like he’s offended he was even offered such a deal.

Yeonjun doesn’t even budge. But then a lightbulb clicks on in his head and he leans forward. “We’ll do it,” he says with a big, lopsided grin that can only mean bad news. “For two and a half snickerdoodles and a  _ kiss _ .”

“A kiss?” Beomgyu repeats dumbly. He hadn’t factored kisses into any of his calculations. What was the correct math for that? But before his brain can work through the exponents and parentheses and multiplication, his mouth says, “Fine.”

Yeonjun cheers, “Yes!” Then he leans even farther forward, snatches the two and a half snickerdoodles out of Beomgyu’s left hand and then presses their mouths together.

Oh, it’s so so so sweet! 

Beomgyu’s eyelids flutter shut. Yeonjun’s mouth is warm and soft and slightly damp and his lips taste so specifically like watermelon. Beomgyu presses forward to chase the flavor, to deepen the kiss. He wants it to go on and forever. He wants to keep going until he runs out of breath.

Then Yeonjun pulls away to shove the cookies in his mouth, the smuggest little smirk on his lips.

“Fine,” says Sooby. “You got us. We’ll do it. We’ll be your bait. Again.” He tilts forward and presses his closed mouth lightly to Beomgyu’s forehead, then he snatches the remaining cookies out of Beomgyu’s right hand and tosses them all into his mouth, chewing loudly, getting crumbs everywhere.

“Alright, Soob,” says Yeonjun. “Time to be the best bait this town has ever seen!” He crawls out of the van, helps Sooby down to the asphalt and the two of them go jogging off.

Oddly, they don’t have to wait half as long as they expected.

Kai has a habit of overplanning, shall we say, so he had predicted it would take ages, perhaps even a whole hour, to get the monster to reveal itself again. He even highly considers the possibility that they’ll have to resume their mystery solving  _ tomorrow night  _ but all it takes is ten minutes.

Ten minutes of hiding in the shadows. Ten minutes of waiting.

Ten minutes of watching Yeonjun and Sooby make absolutely entertaining fools of themselves.

Sooby goes out to the middle of the parking lot and does some kind of chicken waddle dance with his hands tucked beneath his armpits. He even sprinkles on some flavor with the moves by bending over to peck at invisible worms while making clucking noises. 

Apparently, you have to be absolutely thorough when calling a frightening monster a chicken.

Yeonjun isn’t as elaborate with his moves. He just stands on one of the picnic tables and repeatedly shouts “Here burger, burger, burger!” And every now and then he mixes things up by smacking his butt in a taunt.

They are making quite the racket and there’s a chance they’ll wake up the neighborhood and Beomgyu is just starting to believe that they should rethink their strategy when that nuclear green glow spills out from behind the restaurant and thick white fog billows out into the air.

It’s far less terrifying when they are expecting it, when they know what’s in store for them.

Hold on. 

No. Nope. Wait. Gosh. It’s still pretty scary. 

Perhaps it's the speed at which the landscape changes. One second, everything is normal, the next it feels like they’ve been beamed up to some alien planet. 

Yeonjun hops off the picnic table and clearly wants to make a run for it but he gets spun around somehow and loses track of which direction he needs to go. The green lights seem to pulse and strobe and move and disorient and the fog makes it near impossible to see more than an arm’s length away. On top of all of that, the weird, distorted noises start back up. Low and choppy. The monster’s foreign growling vibrates the air and makes their ears hurt. 

“Zoinks,” Yeonjun screams as the fog closes in on them. As the lights half-blind them.

Sooby, as tall and large and heavy as a dog his breed is, whimpers rather pathetically before jumping up into Yeonjun’s arms like he’s still a puppy.

Seconds later, the hamburger monster reveals itself. The big, hulking, dripping thing steps through the thick white fog and  _ roars _ . The noise makes the ground shake! It stretches out its arms and reaches clawed hands out desperately for Sooby and Yeonjun like it wants to grab them and pull them into its lopsided, oddly shaped mouth. 

If the shadows between its two beef patties is considered its mouth.

“Like, don’t come any closer, man,” Yeonjun yells over all the noise.

Of course, the monster does not listen to him. It does the exact opposite and starts running straight for them.

Yeonjun and Sooby share a brief moment of eye contact, then they look back at the monster and shout at the top of their lungs. Somehow, Yeonjun turns and runs, even with big ole Sooby in his arms.

The monster rushes after them, snarling and dripping odd liquid everywhere it goes.

That’s Beomgyu’s cue! 

As fast as he’s able, he takes off running in the opposite direction the monster is headed. He can’t see Yeonjun and Sooby through the flashing lights and fog but he can hear their echoing panicked wails over the low warbling of the monster’s cries. “Stay safe,” he huffs and puffs as he sprints. 

He sticks to the outer edge of the parking lot so that the swirling smoke and the bushes and the shadows of the palm trees obscure his movements and he does not stop running until he’s circled around the building and gotten to the chain link fence around the back.

He’s not at all surprised to discover that the smoke is thickest here. That the green light is brightest here. That the awful noise is loudest here.

He waves his hand in front of his face in a desperate attempt to clear the smoke away. It does not help much.

It takes him several seconds to catch his breath but as soon as he does, he pulls his magnifying glass out of his pocket and goes straight into investigating.

He’s afraid of what he might find (or what might find him!) but this is part of their big plan and he has to hold up his fifth of it.

“You’ve got this, Beomgyu. You’ve done this a hundred times.” He raises his magnifying glass in front of his eye and begins.

First thing he notices is that several of the buckets full of weird-colored water he noticed earlier in the night have been moved or are missing and it’s not until he stands over them and gets a good whiff of what’s in them that he realizes that they are buckets full of slimy, brown, used cooking oil. Blergh! The same disgusting stuff that drips off the hamburger monster. The same stuff Kai and Taehyun found in zig-zagging smears from one end of the parking lot to the other.

“Jinkies,” Beomgyu whispers. And he kind of hates that someone isn’t around to say ‘Beomgyu said jinkies.’ It makes him feel seen. Heard.

The second thing he notices is that the green light doesn’t emanate from anything radioactive or alien. Which is totally fortunate because if it was truly radioactive or alien, his health would be at stake. There are numerous stage lights, some small and some large. Lights that you’d find at a club. They are lined up behind the restaurant and they shoot beams of green lights into the air, through the fog, rotating one way and then the other, pulsating to a beat Beomgyu can’t hear.

“That’s unexpected,” Beomgyu comments. “But it explains the flashing lights.”

And the freaky smoke? He discovers that its harmless, almost sweet-smelling stuff being pumped out through fog machines that would also be found in nightclubs.

He’s noticing a pattern here.

The noise? The low, frightening clicking and humming? It tumbles out of big speakers set up all around, connected to a laptop sitting on a card table in the middle of the back lot.

Gosh. It’s just so much expensive equipment and it’s all just sitting out here unattended and Beomgyu nearly trips over all of the wires and cords stretched into looping tangles across the asphalt.

Then Beomgyu hears a noise. Something not coming out of the speakers. Something terribly close. It’s the creaking of a door opening.

He wants to run, he wants to hide, but it’s too late and he’s spotted immediately.

“You again?”

“Jimin,” Beomgyu spits out.

“I’ve seen more than enough of your face for one night,” Jimin sneers. “It’s late. Why aren’t you at home in bed like the little kid you are?”

“I’m not twelve,” Beomgyu defends himself.

Jimin rolls his eyes. “Could have fooled me.” He comes out of the back door of the restaurant lugging another crate full of expensive-looking sound equipment. He practically growls out, “You’re one nosy kid, aren’t you? Why don’t you mind your own business?”

He’s kind of mean and kind of scary when he yells but Beomgyu stands up straight. “We’re trying to get to the bottom of all of the freaky stuff happening here. If anything, I thought you’d want to help us but now I see that you’re behind it all.”

“I’m behind nothing,” Jimin huffs. “Whatever you’re thinking, you’re dead wrong. Now get out of the way.”

Beomgyu doesn’t get out of the way. “What is going on, then,” Beomgyu questions. He lowers his magnifying glass from in front of his face but Jimin’s frown is still just as easy to spot. “If you’re not involved with all this freaky stuff, then why are you here in the middle of it all?” He waves an arm to indicate the total mess of equipment around them.

Jimin exhales through his nose and speaks up to be heard over the noise coming out of the speakers. “I’m here to clean up this mess because, goodness gracious, I’m always here to clean up the mess.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Jimin knocks Beomgyu out of his way with his shoulder and lugs the heavy crate in his arms towards his car. “The club I DJ at in the evenings has been slowly losing some of its equipment over the last few weeks. A light here, a smoke machine there, a small speaker from off the wall… Even some of my sound mixing stuff went missing.” He grunts as he lowers the crate into the trunk of the car and then stands up stiffly, slapping a hand down on his lower back. “No one noticed at first but now it’s a huge deal. The club manager blamed me and threatened to fire me when she saw one of the smoke machines in my backseat. I told her I didn’t know how it got there but she didn’t believe me so I made it my mission to clear my name before I got fired. Lo and behold, I start finding the missing equipment around the Interstellar Hot Dog. In the bushes. In the trees. On the roof. In some of these garbage bags.” He kicks one near his foot. “I’ve been carting this stuff back to the nightclub since I clocked out of here and now it seems like someone’s using it all for a private concert.”

Beomgyu grits his teeth. Running into Jimin here is just a classic case of awful timing. That narrows the suspect list even further. “You’re going to want to see this.” He reaches forward, grabs Jimin by the front of his shirt and pulls the guy through the gate in the chain link fence and around the corner of the building.

“Get your grubby little hands off of me,” Jimin complains, but he lets tiny little Beomgyu drag him to the customer parking lot just in time to watch Yeonjun and Sooby run past them screaming and yelling. “W-w-what?” Jimin stutters out. “Are you kids the ones who stole all of this stuff? Do you think this is some kind of game? I’ll beat your--”

But Beomgyu doesn’t even get a chance to speak out because the hamburger monster comes thrashing out of the fog as it chases after Yeonjun and Sooby.

It’s a terrifying sight. It’s glowing eyes pierce the night and the green fog drifts and swirls after it as it runs.

Jimin loses all of his composure. “What the-”

On the other side of the parking lot, Yeonjun and Sooby run for their lives.

Yeonjun wheezes, “Man, why is it always us that, like, get neck deep in these sticky situations?”

Sooby runs next to him, hands clamped down over his stomach as his muscles burn from the impromptu workout session. “We should form a union and demand fairer working conditions.”

“What lap are we on, Soob?”

Sooby counts on his fingers. “Lap three? About to be lap four?”

And that’s odd because they’ve lured the monster past the pair of trees that Kai told them to multiple times now and yet no trap has been activated. The monster hasn’t been caught. They simultaneously sigh as they get ready to run around the property for yet another lap.

“Come on, Soob,” Yeonjun grunts out. “We can’t stop now. I finally got to kiss Beomgyu!”

“So you can kiss Beomgyu but I can’t kiss the poodle or the dalmatian?”

But now isn’t really the time to fuss and fight. The two are running out of stamina and as they lose speed at the tail end of the lap, the hamburger monster noticeably closes the distance between them. They won’t make it another lap without getting caught. Without getting smothered in grease and whatever else the monster has in store for them.

“Where is Kai when you need him,” Yeonjun screams.

Speaking of Kai, over by the picnic tables, between two palm trees, Kai and Taehyun squat in the grass.

“What’s the hold up,” Taehyun asks. 

“I’m trying, Tae,” Kai says. “But even with the fan providing ample air circulation, the motor is still overheating even though it’s barely built up the pressure to launch the net.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean,” Taehyun demands.

Kai simplifies it. “If I press the button now, nothing will happen.”

It’s an unsatisfactory answer. Taehyun’s not even the one running but his heart pounds in his chest. “Sooby and Yeonjun… They can’t keep this up for long. What if they get hurt?”

Kai groans. “I know. I know. I’m  _ trying _ .”

But they don’t have the luxury of sitting still for much longer. On the other side of the parking lot, an all-too-familiar car rolls into the parking lot. Taehyun sits up, eyes wide. “Mr. Kim is back.”

Sure enough, Namjoon parks near the center of the lot and casually gets out of the car like the boys aren’t in the middle of laying a trap for a monster.

Taehyun jumps to his feet. “He’s going to get in the way. I’ll try and stop him.” He starts to run but then skids to a halt to glare over his shoulder. “Hurry up, Kai. That machine better be working the next time the boys come around.”

Kai smacks the machine in question against the ground in hopes that it’ll start working. It doesn’t. “I’ll manage,” he grunts.

In the meantime, Taehyun rushes across the parking lot in the direction of Namjoon’s car. Although the smoke covers the property like a low-hanging cloud and the flashing green light gives Taehyun a bit of a headache, it’s easy to follow the yellowish beams of light coming from Namjoon’s headlights. Taehyun runs up to the man. “Mr. Kim!”

Namjoon practically jumps out of his skin as Taehyun appears out of the fog in front of him. “Taehyun?” His eyes go wide. Then he chokes on the thick smoke in the air and fans his hand in front of his face. “What in blazes is going on? Do you boys have something to do with this?”

“No,” Taehyun says quickly, “but we’re about to figure out who is at the bottom of this. Come this way or you’ll be in firing range.”

“Firing range,” Namjoon repeats. “What? What are you boys up to?”

But Taehyun really doesn’t have time to explain so he just pulls and pulls on Namjoon’s arm until he manages to get the guy moving back across the parking lot towards their hiding place.

They don’t make it.

Yeonjun and Sooby break out of the fog bank, huffing and wheezing, choking on air.

“I can’t run anymore, man,” groans Yeonjun. “I’m about to lay down and just let the thing eat me.”

Sooby is right on his heels and he drapes his arms over Yeonjun’s shoulders, tired and exhausted and panting. “I’m not going to be tasty at all. I’m just stringy, lean meat.”

Namjoon blinks, flabbergasted. “What on earth is going on? Why are you guys throwing a dance party in my parking lot?”

“It’s not us,” yells Taehyun. “It’s whatever that thing is!” And he points.

They all spin around and watch in slack-jawed horror as the hamburger monster lurches towards them. Slimy grease drips from its hands, from its layers of beef and lettuce.

“Fire in the hole,” Kai screams.

There’s a bright, brief flash of white light off to their left and then a huge fishing net comes sailing through the air with such speed that it knocks the hamburger monster over and sends it rolling across the asphalt.

“Yes!” Yeonjun exclaims. “Bullseye! We did it!”

Namjoon tries to break out of Taehyun’s grip to approach the struggling, rolling monster but Taehyun tightens his hold on the man to keep him at a safe distance.

It’s Sooby who dares to get close. He leans over the monster, sniffs it carefully and then backs away. “It’s not premium beef at all,” he whines. “It’s just rubber!”

The monster struggles and fights and snarls beneath the weight of the net but the more it twists, the more tangled it gets in the ropes. Eventually, the fight leaves it and it goes still beneath the net, its body heaving as it breathes.

Slowly, the world returns to normal.

The green lights shut off, the fog dissipates and the ear-splitting noise abruptly halts.

Beomgyu and Jimin approach them from the other side of the parking lot.

“Oh, am I glad to see you,” Yeonjun sighs. He slaps a hand down on Beomgyu’s shoulder. 

“As you guys can see,” Beomgyu gets straight into it, “this is no radioactive, mutated hamburger monster. It’s someone in a costume using stage lights and special effects to really sell the narrative.”

Jimin folds his arms across his chest. “I just want to finish taking all of this stuff back to the club, you guys. Can you hurry this up?”

Sooby goes, “Shhh! You can’t rush the deduction!”

“It’s the most important thing,” Kai says, joining them. He drags his burnt-out, smoking invention behind him across the pavement. It looks like it exploded but didn’t even have a chance to properly scatter into a million pieces because of the sheer amount of duct tape wrapped around it. “Continue, Beomgyu.”

“We made a guess that it was someone associated with Atomic Burger who was behind this mess. They wanted to scare away customers from Mr. Kim’s business in an attempt to stress him out and make him reflect on his actions.”

Namjoon looks totally dumbfounded. “Reflect? What did I do?”

“You’ll have to ask the culprit directly,” Beomgyu says, “and maybe even press charges.”

Taehyun says, “But who can it possibly be? I thought we ruled out nearly everyone.”

“Come on, Beomgyu!” Yeonjun bounces on his heels in excitement. “You gotta do my favorite part. Oooh, this is gonna be good!”

Beomgyu swallows the last dredges of his fear-- _ he’s done this a hundred times! _ \--then takes a few steps forward and grips the black-olive-shaped mask that sits on the edge of one of the dripping slices of lettuce. He has to get both hands on it and it takes a little bit of work to get his fingers under the edge, and then it takes even more work to get the mask up and over the head of the freakishly-dressed culprit.

Beomgyu steps back to get a good look at who is beneath the mask.

“Jungkook?” Everyone choruses the name simultaneously. 

About two seconds later than everyone else, Sooby parrots, “Jungkook?”

Sure enough, it’s Jungkook in the rubber suit. The sweet, chill guy who always gives them extra condiment packets, rewards them with free ice cream when he finds out they ace their quizzes and who saves them from the worst of Jimin’s tempers. Seeing him beneath the mask feels unreal. Beomgyu kind of feels betrayed and drops the mask. 

At least Jimin doesn’t seem all too blown away. “Figures,” he huffs, and then walks away, sliding his sunglasses up his nose as he goes.

“Jungkook,” Kai sighs. He sounds so disappointed. 

The man’s eyes are narrowed with irritation and frustration and he glares up at the gang, practically snarls. “Just one more weekend,” he yells, “and everything would have worked out perfectly.”

Namjoon is probably the most surprised out of everyone. He pushes between Yeonjun and Taehyun and jostles Beomgyu to the side in order to lean down into the man’s face. “Jungkook?” He really can’t believe it. “Why would you do this? Why would you try to ruin me like this?”

“The fact that you don’t even know is the reason why I had to do this,” Jungkook huffs.

“But  _ why _ ?” Namjoon runs a hand through his hair. “What did I do to you that would make you mess up everything I’ve worked so hard for?”

“You’ll never understand,” Jungkook growls. He lunges forward as if to bite Namjoon’s extended hand and Beomgyu pulls Namjoon back a step just in time.

“Why don’t you explain it to me,” Namjoon insists. “And then I’ll let you know if I understand.”

Jungkook rolls his eyes. It’s a look of anger that would be so much more effective if his head didn’t look so stupidly small coming out of the hamburger costume. “I’ve worked for you for seven years. Since this place first opened! But I’m still working the freakin’ register like a noob.” His sweat-damp hair hangs across his face and he jerks his head to fling it out of his eyes. “I applied for Atomic Burger just on a whim last month and Hoseok is not only doubling my pay but putting me straight into a management position!”

Beomgyu sucks in air between his teeth. That’s actually a semi-decent reason.

“But will he hire you now,” Namjoon asks, “once he finds out you’ve done all of this?”

And a look of shame crosses Jungkook’s face. At least for a moment. At least long enough for him to hang his head. Then, just as quickly, his anger is back. “I haven’t gotten a raise since last winter but you expect me to keep up these ridiculous hours through another tourist season?”

“So you decide to scare away  _ all _ of the customers,” Namjoon asks. To his credit, he’s ridiculously patient about all of this. 

Jungkook screams in frustration. “Why not? I’ve got no loyalty to you. Next weekend would have been my last day. I would no longer work for you.”

“And I’ll see to it that you don’t work for Hoseok either,” Namjoon says.

“It was such a good plan,” Jungkook cries out. “I was so close to getting everyone to go to Atomic Burger instead.” He can’t even move or attempt to struggle free of Kai’s net because of how cumbersome the costume is. He aims his heated gaze up at the boys. “And I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling kids and your stupid dog.”

Yeonjun tilts his head back and sighs almost dreamily. “Ahh, love hearing that. It never gets old.”

“I’m not stupid,” Sooby complains. “I have a marginally high IQ for my breed!”

“Sure you do,” Yeonjun tells him and stands on his tip toes to pat Sooby on the head.

Namjoon turns towards them. At least he doesn’t look as defeated as he has been the last few weeks. “Thanks, you guys,” Namjoon says. “It’ll take some time but I’m sure I’ll recover. I… I owe you.”

“ _ Owe _ us,” Kai repeats. “You shouldn’t have said that.”

“Can we get free footlongs,” Yeonjun demands. “And free ice cream and free onion rings and free bacon chili cheese fries and free tortilla chips?”

Namjoon looks appalled but eventually manages to reel in his terrified expression. “How about free soda?” Then he sees the greedy way Yeonjun rubs his hands together. Namjoon hastily amends, “ _ One _ free cup of soda on Saturdays.”

Taehyun shrugs. “Works for me.”

“I’m not gonna complain,” Kai says.

Beomgyu says, “If we get no ice, we get more liquid. Basic physics.”

Hey. Free soda is free soda. Yeonjun lifts his hand for the high-five. “We did it, Soob!”

Sooby slaps their palms together. “Sooby Dooby Doo!”

🌭

It’s definitely 1 AM, maybe even later than that, but Kai takes his time driving Taehyun home. He has no reason to rush. There is no longer any need for urgency. The monster has been dealt with, he’s taken Sooby and Yeonjun and Beomgyu home, the streets are clear, the music is slow and school is gonna be there waiting for them in the morning no matter what time they get back to their houses.

Why cut their time together any shorter than they have to?

“I’ll text Yoongi and let him know we’re almost there,” Taehyun says. 

Kai coughs and grips the steering wheel a little tighter. He wants to tell Taehyun to just say screw it to everything and perhaps they can hang out for the rest of the night. Just the two of them. Even though it’s a school night. No. Maybe he’s getting a bit ahead of himself. He might be the #1 mystery solver in town but there’s one mystery he hasn’t come close to solving, even though he’s been working at it for years.

And that mystery is… Does Taehyun like him back? Taehyun is so great and can live the kind of life Kai can only dream about. What can Kai give him that Taehyun can’t go get himself? Still. There’s a chance, right? Kai’s been digging into the mystery for a while now but the clues he manages to find are small and do little to put the puzzle together for him. How exactly is he supposed to find out? How does he get to the bottom of this?

How does he answer the question, once and for all, if Taehyun likes him too?

“Hey.” Taehyun’s gentle voice startles Kai out of his thoughts. “You’re speeding again.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” Kai slows the van down to below the speed limit. It’s just so easy to keep a heavy foot on the gas pedal when there are no other cars on the road.

“You okay, Kai,” asks Taehyun. He sits on the passenger side of the bench seat like he usually does when Beomgyu’s not here but tonight, for some odd reason, he feels so much farther away than normal. “You’ve been really quiet this whole ride. That’s so unlike you.”

“Just thinking,” he responds. It amazes him that the most simple things can wind up being extremely difficult to do. All he has to do is  _ confess _ . Why is that so hard?

“You know you can always talk to me,” Taehyun tells him. “We’re friends. That’s what I’m here for.”

The road they are on is relatively straight so Kai takes the chance to look over and watch Taehyun. The window is down so the night breeze stirs up Taehyun’s hair and floats the scent of his expensive Chanel perfume to Kai’s nose. Before he gets caught staring, he puts his eyes back on the road.

Taehyun continues, “I know I don’t always understand everything, like when I’m talking with Beomgyu or with Yeonjun, but I try really hard. If something’s bothering you, Kai, just let me know.”

And the option is _ right there _ and Kai wants to take it but what happens if he confesses and Taehyun turns him down? He’s allowed to. It’ll hurt but he can do that. Won’t the rest of the car ride be awkward? Will they be able to keep solving mysteries together?

“Kai?”

“I heard you. I heard you. Thanks. Thanks for the offer. I mean it. I’m just scared.”

“After a night like tonight, what can you possibly be scared of?”

“A lot of things.” Now that they aren’t in the center of town, the speed limit goes up. Kai presses down harder on the gas. “But I think I’m mainly afraid of my own feelings and what they could mean.”

It’s the closest Kai wants to directly get to it so he leaves it like that and focuses on driving. These hills and the drooping trees that hang across the road can lower visibility at night and the corners can be tricky if you’ve got too much speed.

To change the subject, Kai goes, “Are you doing alright? I know it’s been a little tough for you tonight. With the whole waving around your money thing.”

“I’m okay,” Taehyun answers. “You were tough on me because you care about me and want me to learn and grow.”

“Yes. Of course. As always.” Kai wants to reach out and pull him close but he’s driving so he decides not to. It’s best to focus on the road. Focus on the winding switchbacks as they drive up to the cliffs and leave sea level beneath them. Going around some of the sharper curves feels like flying and, honestly, really, truly, Kai just wants to hold Taehyun’s hand.

But can he? Is he thinking too much when he lets himself believe that his feelings are returned?

They come up on Taehyun’s gated community faster than Kai wishes them to. The two of them are running out of alone time and Kai is desperate to figure things out. He doesn’t know why but tonight feels like the night he needs to air his feelings out. If he doesn’t do it now, he’ll probably keep them bottled up inside until he graduates from high school or something. Perhaps even longer than that. He opens his mouth to address it.

Yet Taehyun beats him to it. “I care about you too, you know,” he says. “Whenever you show up with new burns and cuts on your hands because one of your inventions doesn’t go well, I always get worried. I don’t want you to get hurt so seeing you all banged up makes me feel bad.”

“I try my best to be careful,” Kai says. Even at the late hour, the gate into Taehyun’s neighborhood opens up for them as they round the corner. Kai waves at the guard as he drives the van through. “But it means a lot to me that you worry about me.”

“Of course I care,” says Taehyun. “You mean the world to me.”

And that can mean  _ so many different things _ but does it mean what Kai needs it to mean? He has mere minutes to ask! “Taehyun, can I tell you something?”

“Certainly,” he responds. 

Kai isn’t looking at him but he can hear the smile in Taehyun’s voice. “I--”

But in his haste to confess his feelings, he forgets about the stupid little speed bump and the van jolts and squeals as he goes flying over it.

Kai looks over at Taehyun. Taehyun looks over at him. Both of their eyes are wide. Both of their mouths sit open in surprise. 

Kai is the first to laugh. And maybe the speed bump has jostled his good sense loose because he blurts out, “I like you, Taehyun.”

And Taehyun goes, “I like you.”

They drive around the last curve in the road and Taehyun’s big house with its big pool rises up in front of them on its big cliff. “I mean it, Tae. I like you-like you.”

And, just as easily, just as quickly, Taehyun says, “I like you-like you too.”

Kai expects the world to change. He expects fireworks to light up the sky. He expects the moon to fall from the clouds and plop into the ocean and make a big tidal wave. He expects the van to go kaput on him and clunk to a halt at the curb. None of that happens. The world keeps spinning. He likes Taehyun. Taehyun likes him. Nothing has changed. But everything has changed.

Kai slows the van down in front of Taehyun’s big house and Yoongi looks like a statue standing stock-still at the curb. This is it. This is how the evening ends.

“Thanks, Kai,” says Taehyun in a voice so soft that Kai only hears it because it’s whispered directly into his ear. “This was the best night of my life.” And then he smiles and slides across the seat to get out of the van.

Kai has faced all sorts of dangers. Not just tonight but over the last couple of years. However, what he’s about to do takes every ounce of courage he’s got in his body and then some. He reaches out, grabs Taehyun’s shoulder before he slides too far away, he turns Taehyun around and brings their faces close. “Anytime,” he says.

And then they’re kissing.

Just like that.

Brief. Sweet. Soft. Cool.

Like the first lick of ice cream off a cone. Like the first sip of lemonade on a hot day. Like the first chilly splash of the pool when you dive in.

It’s brilliant and bright but it is short-lived.

Yet it still takes Kai’s breath away when Taehyun kisses him back.

Kai pulls away and Taehyun’s smile is just as bright and luminous and life-changing as the light of the moon. “Good night, Kai. See you at school tomorrow,” Taehyun says, then he gets out of the van and walks up to the curb where Yoongi patiently waits for him.

“See you,” Kai shouts out the door, just before Yoongi pushes it shut.

Taehyun waves at him. And although Yoongi is right there with him, Kai waits until the two of them walk the length of the driveway and disappear into the house before he puts the old van in gear and drives home.

Mystery solved.


End file.
